Benefits of an Energy Marketplace

Energy providers around the globe are being forced to operate in a whole new world today. Everything and everyone is increasingly connected and energy customers are embracing innovative technologies and taking on new roles as both buyers and sellers of energy.

At the same time, majority of society today overwhelmingly supports a quick transition to efficient, zero-emissions energy. And while we want this future, we’re less certain about the choices and sacrifices — and we don’t always know where to focus our efforts.

But what if we could focus our efforts in such a way that offers a win-win solution for everyone?

• Consumers
• Producers
• Households 
• Commercial buildings and
• Industrial facilities

This is what SunContract aims to achieve with its P2P energy marketplace feature. Our goal with the energy marketplace is to empower customers to make informed purchasing decisions, manage energy costs, increase profitability, promote sustainable behaviour and provide a more satisfying overall customer experience.

SunContract Marketplace Benefits

So exactly why are energy customers opting to switch over to use this marketplace feature? You may wonder. And without much further ado, we’ll dive right into some of the benefits of the SunContract energy marketplace: 

Savings for consumers: 

Whether you rent or own your home or business space, Suncontract’s energy marketplace offers you real opportunities for savings. Both our residential and business customers have the option to set consumer orders for those generating energy to fulfill. A consumer order is essentially the price at which the energy consumer would like to buy electricity at.

Alternatively, if the consumer identifies a producer who is selling energy at this price, they simply can click on the “Accept button” of the producer’s order and the two enter a P2P energy agreement.

This trade of energy between the two parties is settled without the need for a middleman energy retailer. The absence of a middleman supplier contributes to energy savings since their operational costs are eliminated. SunContract only charges a transaction fee of a few cents per transaction.

Clean energy options: 

Due to increasing numbers of consumers seeking green or clean energy sources, SunContract leverages its competitive advantage by providing a destination for green energy offerings only, to its energy customers. This gives energy consumers more options for meeting their sustainability and environmental goals.

Customers can set their preferred energy choices in the “Preferences” tab as shown above. The renewable energy options on the marketplace include: solar energy, hydro power, wind power, biogas as well as cogeneration. Once the preferences are set, then the energy source on and off the marketplace that they wish to consume, is prioritised for their consumption.

Increased profit for producers

You must be wondering, but how can energy producers increase their savings if the energy consumers are reducing their energy costs? How are both able to benefit? This is possible due to the removal of the middleman operational costs and profit.

Before, SunContract’s energy producers sold their energy surpluses to a middle man retailer who would then raise the price and sell it to the end energy consumer at a profit. The middleman energy retailer took the profit at the expense of both the producer and consumer.  

In the absence of this retailer, producers can sell their energy at higher prices than the retailer was willing to purchase it at, and this price can still be lower than the price that the retailer sold the energy to the end consumer at. So both the producer and the consumer have much to gain in this kind of peer-to-peer business model since they essentially “share” the profits which the middleman retailer would have otherwise received, while also completely eliminating the operational cost of the middleman.

Similar to our consumer customers, the producer can either accept existing consumer orders on the marketplace, or set their own order and wait for a consumer to accept it. 

Transparency, Flexibility, Fair Pricing:

Sourcing energy on the SunContract energy marketplace provides customers with unlimited flexibility as it allows them to accept offers from a wide range of producers and consumers without binding them long term. This means that if a customer identifies pricing opportunities that are more advantageous on the platform, they can opt for these prices at any given time, allowing them to either increase their earnings, or reduce their energy costs. All consumer and producer offerings are publicly displayed for all marketplace participants which helps create a competitive marketplace – defined by fair pricing for all involved. 

Marketplaces – the future of our economy

In this new era of a sharing economy, marketplaces continue to bloom since they provide value to customers by making their search and decision-making that much easier. 

The interconnectedness of society today has raised the bar with customers who now expect choice, control and convenience. And at SunContract, we’re proud to deliver to our customers a myriad of options transparently, which enables them to become better off.