E.ON invests in Australian solar scale-up to reduce UK's energy poverty

E.ON UK has agreed to invest £4 million ($5.4 million) in Australian solar scaleup Allume Energy to support growth of the company's SolShare technology across the UK.

Allume’s SolShare technology is designed to enable solar energy from a single rooftop solar system to be shared more fairly across multiple homes in the same building. 

Cameron Knox, CEO of Allume, commented in a statement: “People living in flats experience the highest fuel poverty rates in the UK, yet have historically been locked out of rooftop solar due to technical and ownership considerations.

"SolShare enables them to access free, clean energy from the sun. Working with E.ON UK offers a transformational opportunity for Allume to scale our existing offerings and create new models across Europe, where 300 million people live in low and medium rise apartment buildings.”

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The solution works by taking the power generated from a single rooftop solar system, on an apartment building for example, and delivering it to each household within the building, ensuring all residents get a fair share.

According to E.ON, this is done ‘behind the meter’ and ultimately allows households to benefit from lower bills.

SolShare’s algorithm ensures solar energy consumption is maximised on site before any energy is fed back to the grid and allows residents to maintain their choice of energy provider with no external changes needed by suppliers or network providers.

Chris Norbury, CEO of E.ON UK, commented in a statement: “Our investment in Allume is another important step towards making the transition to clean energy more inclusive...with about one in six people currently living in social housing we see an enormous opportunity to help people to lower their energy bills and reduce their carbon emissions, making solar more useful and affordable for the many, not the few.”

Allume was established in Melbourne in 2015 and operates in Australia, the UK and the USA. To date, the firm has installed its SolShare system on over 6,000 homes worldwide, generating and sharing over 14GWh of green electricity to connected homes.