The Co-Solar Project

Imagine a world where developing nations and communities could work together to get access to reliable energy which for clean water, kick start industries and change their world for the better.

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Inspiration

At school we studied Energy Island in Denmark. A community where every person on the island switched to renewable solar, wind and tidal energy to become completely independent of the local traditional energy grid and fossil fuels. Our mentor also told us about a project on Anglesey in Wales which was to set up a clean energy super-factory by setting up tidal, wave, wind and solar power on the island to provide electricity to the national grid.

This got us thinking, what about other countries that get to enjoy really strong, consistent access to sunlight but sadly don't have reliable electricity supplies or any access to energy at all. Perhaps these communities rely on burning fossil fuels which damages our environment and poisons the environment around them.

There's got to be a better way. A way that we can harness the power of finance to build a reliable energy network for these communities to get access to better facilities, help raise them from poverty and perhaps help them build up green industries of their own. This way is The Co-Solar Project!

How does the App work?

The system uses the following steps:

  • A person or a group of people come together for a group loan. Using Finastra’s Trust Machine API’s, Lending solutions such as Essence and S-BOB Merry Go Round
  • When the loan is approved we let the people who asked for the loan know. This will set them up on the Bank’s systems as well as ours.
  • We then contact a solar panel distributor to purchase and deliver the panels. This could use Finastra’s Banking as a Service product or a combination of the bank and Trust Machine.
  • Once we’ve got a date for the panels to be delivered we find an installer. This person could be trained up to maintain and fix the solar panels or already be someone we’ve got approved for use.
  • We orchestrate the entire journey from customers asking for the loan to solar panels getting installed.

How does the Business work?

We organise the loan and the setting up the solar farm. For this we get a fee from the bank for setting up the loan.

We will also get a monthly fee from the bank for providing them a full supply chain to get the solar panels set up.

The benefit for the bank of course is the interest gained on the loan.

The benefit for the borrower is that any extra electricity they generate they can sell to other settlements or businesses in the area to help grow local industries and improve the lives of others. This turns the solar panels they’ve borrowed for into a way to make money.

As well as providing them electricity, they can use this electricity to improve their access to clean water.

Finally we will offer incentives to the borrower, if they use some of their profits to help set up other farms in the area we will deduct those amounts from their overall loan amount as they’re bringing us additional borrowers.

How we built it

We built this application and business plan in a number of stages. We started by looking at the problem and how we could build an ecosystem around our product to build a reliable and sustainable business. Once we did this we designed some screens and showed them to our mentor. Once they saw the screens we sat down and designed the app and discussed the API's we're going to need to make this work in the real world.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge we faced was how do we create an entire supply chain for the banks so customers can easily get a loan approved by the bank and the solar panels set up. We also wanted to make it easy for the banks to provide the solar panels to their customers and set up local industries to service the repeat demand. It was a really exciting moment when we figured out how to do this!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • We're proud of our idea and how we worked together to make it happen.
  • We’re proud that we got to work together as a team to represent our school.
  • We’re very proud of our idea and the designs we made to show our mentor for the app.

What we learned

  • Teamwork and how to share ideas and agree on what to do with all of our ideas
  • We learned about community. Not just our community but how to be a good global citizen and how we can work together to help improve the lives of others.
  • We learned a bit about code, we saw some HTML, JavaScript, CSS and learned about how Apps and Websites are made.
  • We learned a lot about Finance. We were taught about green loans and how banks and other lenders are trying to help make it easier to borrow money to do good things.
  • We learned about how money works and the difference between paper money and digital money.

What's next for The Co-Solar Project

The world needs this. If we’re going to save our ecosystems we need to build one of our own!

  • Partner with Lenders to get them to support loans for Solar Power
  • Work with Finastra and their API’s to get the loans and set up the farms.
  • Identify a number of key providers of solar panels in the beginning to reduce the costs to lenders and borrowers.
  • Find or train solar panel technicians in key areas near our go-to-market locations.

We will need to finish our App and create a website where solar panel technicians and distributors can sign up.

Finally we will need to plug our app into Finastra API’s from these products to handle the money:

  • Trust Machine / FusionTrust
  • Baas / Banking as a Service
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