Ripple

Idea

Introduction

Ripple's mission is to make clean energy ownership affordable and accessible for everyone.

People want to reduce their carbon footprint and they want low, stable electricity bills. Until now rooftop solar was the main way to do it, but it can be expensive and not suitable for people who rent or live in flats.

Ripple is a clean energy ownership platform with an aim to enable people to own new, large scale wind farms and have the clean, low cost, stable priced power they produce supplied to their homes.

Onshore wind is now the UK's cheapest source of power. We estimate shared ownership of onshore wind farms is around 75% cheaper than rooftop solar. It's also more flexible and portable.

Ripple's platform will bring together everything needed for clean energy ownership and supply into a complete, easy to use service.

We believe that in future people won't need utilities or pension funds to own wind farms or solar parks for them, with Ripple's help they'll be able to do it themselves.

Note - this campaign is to raise equity investment in Ripple the company, not a wind farm project. Ripple expects to be able to launch its first wind farm project for consumer ownership later in 2019.

Intended impact

With wind, bigger is better and much cheaper. Working in the wind industry I saw how big companies like Google and IKEA were increasingly able to buy large scale, low cost clean power direct. I wanted to break down the barriers and enable individual households to be able to do the same.

People's clean energy choice shouldn't be limited to expensive, small scale rooftop solar or potentially volatile priced green energy tariffs. For the first time that we are aware of, Ripple will make ownership of large scale wind farms accessible for individual households. This will enable them to be supplied by low cost, stable priced clean power for the long term.

We estimate the upfront cost of wind farm ownership for a typical household is around £1300, nearly 75% cheaper than rooftop solar. Once built the wind farm supplies low cost, stable priced electricity to the owner for its 25 year life, via special tariffs from Ripple's supply partners. We estimate that customers could save up to circa £85 to £175 per year on their electricity bills.

Substantial accomplishments to date

So far Ripple has:

- Over 460 people pre-registered for its first wind farms. This is ahead of a marketing campaign or public launch. Over 100 people pre-registered in March alone.

- Achieved 27% pre-registration conversion rate from clickthroughs amongst Tesla owners when shared with Tesla owners' Facebook group.

- Secured interest from 2 electricity suppliers (700k customers in total), in earlier discussions with 2 others.

- Identified potential wind farms for the pilot project which are consented to for planning but not yet built and operational.

- Identified potential full scale wind farm projects.

- Drafted the contractual framework, including the Community Benefit Society rules and Supplier Framework Agreement.

- Secured interest from a community energy charity for a finance facility if needed.

- Secured a Fully Charged episode on Ripple, to be filmed during the construction of the pilot project (Fully Charged is a popular YouTube channel for electric vehicle and clean energy enthusiasts - a key target market for Ripple).

- CEO is speaking at Fully Charged Live in June 2019, as well as Ripple exhibiting at the show.

- CEO speaking at multiple industry conferences, including Utility Week Live, Utility Week Energy Summit, and Smart Energy Wales.

- CEO included in Business Green's 'Secrets of the Disruptors' https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/interview/3064....

- Reached the regional finals of Shell Springboard competition.

Monetisation strategy

Ripple plans to have three main revenue streams:

Arrangement fees.
This will be Ripple's primary source of revenue. Paid by customers when they buy their share of the wind farm. Applied as a % of the upfront cost. It covers the transaction and marketing cost of launching each new wind farm project.

Customer acquisition fees.
Will be paid by supply partners for new Ripple customers which switch to them. Not paid if a supply partner's existing customer signs up to Ripple. The acquisition fee will be the second largest source of revenue, but substantially lower than the arrangement fee revenue.

Monthly management fees.
Will be paid by customers once wind farms are operational for the management of the wind farm and the Community Benefit Society. Will be the smallest source of revenue, increasing as more and more wind farms go live.

We also plan to offer Ripple as an employee benefit. Companies with strong climate values will be able to help their employees own their own source of clean power and spread the cost via salary sacrifice.

Use of proceeds

Ripple will use the investment secured to:

Complete development of the platform.
We will complete the development of the ownership platform, customer management system and website ahead of the launch of the pilot project. We also plan to integrate employee benefit offerings and gift options into the platform ahead of the full scale project.

Launch the pilot project.
Investment will pay for the transaction and marketing costs involved in launching the pilot wind farm (note - it does not pay for the construction or purchase of the pilot, customers pay for that).

Build the team.
Investment will enable Ripple to recruit. Recruitment will focus on the Tech team, as well as recruitment of a Finance Director and Business Development manager.

Prepare for the full scale project.
Investment funds Ripple's business costs during the preparation for the launch of the full scale project in early 2020.