The start-ups bringing cheap, green energy to Australia

Melbourne mates Dan Adams and Chris Thompson have come up with a genius way for Aussies to go green and save money.

A potentially deadly infection on holiday led to an Aussie to start a multimillion dollar business that will help in the fight against climate change.

Dan Adams, from Melbourne, was surfing in Samoa at age 18 when a cut on a reef resulted in a deadly golden staph infection. He faced the confronting reality that the local hospital was critically short on both doctors and antibiotics.

Travel insurance ensured he got treatment, but he was dismayed at how his privilege was the only thing that stood between him and possible death. “It was a really confronting experience and I thought I have to do something about this,” said Mr Adams.

After heading home to Melbourne and, with no prior history setting up major events, he made the bold decision to launch the first Make Poverty History campaign in Australia.

Mr Adams spent six months trying to get high profile bands to perform at his charity gig, and got nowhere. Until out of the blue, Pearl Jam and U2 returned his calls – and the show was on.

A total of 25,000 people attended the inaugural event in 2006 and 50,000 Aussies called on the government to end extreme poverty. The then soon to be prime minister Kevin Rudd later cited the campaign as one of the reasons he went on to increase the country’s aid budget by billions of dollars.

The Make Poverty History concert in Melbourne in 2006. Picture: Supplied.

Dan with Bono at the Make Poverty History event. Picture: Supplied.

“It changed how I think about what’s possible. Through sheer persistence and a bunch of people pouring their hearts and soul into an idea, it came to life,” said Mr Adams, who went on to be named Victoria’s Young Australian of the Year.

Fast forward to 2021, Mr Adams, 34, and his best mate Chris Thompson, 32, are the founders of Amber, a green energy provider looking to shake-up how Aussies use electricity.

The Melbourne-based company is on a mission to accelerate Australia’s transition to 100 per cent renewables – by helping Aussies shift more of their energy usage to times when solar and wind power are peaking in the grid.

It was on a beach in Ecuador, where Mr Adams and Mr Thompson were travelling in 2017, that the two mates hatched the idea for a new type of energy provider.

“I’d been writing business plans for almost a year, searching for how to solve the problem of how to get Aussies to use more renewables when they’re available in the grid – because that’s really a win/win for everyone,” said Mr Adams.

“Chris came over to visit, tore up all my ideas, and said, ‘I’ve got an even simpler way to do this.’ And that’s how it all started.”

Dan and Chris in Ecuador. Picture: Supplied.

Today Amber has attracted thousands of customers keen to cut their carbon emissions and their energy costs – a number that surged recently with Shell’s buyout of green provider Powershop.

Amber customers pay a monthly subscription of $15 to run their home on wholesale electricity rates. Through the Amber app, they can see the forecast price of electricity, which rises and falls throughout the day based on how much renewable energy is supplying the grid.

They can then adjust their energy usage – putting on the laundry at 8am rather than 8pm for example – to take advantage of when energy is greener and cheaper and reduce demand for fossil fuels.

Amber enables people to buy wholesale electricity and compare and track when renewable energy is in the grid. Picture: Amber.

Dan and Chris from Amber. Picture: Supplied.

In some cases, customers can even get paid to charge their batteries or electric vehicles when wholesale prices go below zero.

This year, the company’s efforts caught the eye of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA). The bank invested $20 million in the energy start-up’s third major funding round, joining some of Australia’s leading venture capital firms and other social impact investors as backers.

“The CBA investment was really huge for us, primarily because it’s going to help us fast-track our mission to take Australia to 100 per cent renewables, giving us more cash to develop our technology and reach more people,” said Mr Thompson.

Solar panels for apartments

For Cameron Knox, 28, the boom in solar energy in Australia was also the inspiration for an innovative business idea intended to give more Aussies access to renewable energy.

As rooftop solar boomed in Australia, to the point where a quarter of homes today have solar panels installed, Mr Knox couldn’t help but see unfairness.

“Only a certain proportion of people who can afford to buy a home can save money on their electricity bills by installing solar panels and batteries. People who would benefit even more are left paying ever increasing bills, with no power to take control of that and make it cleaner and cheaper. We wanted to change that,” said Mr Knox.

Cameron Knox of Allume Energy. Picture: Supplied.

The Allume Energy team.

Mr Knox and his co-founder Andrew Justo started Allume Energy and developed SolShare, a world-first solar sharing technology, designed to make rooftop solar easy to install and share in apartments.

“SolShare splits the energy from a single rooftop solar system and divides it among anyone in that building who wants to get access to it,” said Mr Knox.

A typical SolShare system that costs about $2500 per apartment will offset 40 per cent of a user’s electricity usage from the grid. With a useful life of around 25 years, this adds up to average savings of $10,000.

For those who are not planning to remain in their apartment building that long, Allume offers a no upfront-cost offering that allows the typical user to get access to energy at a rate 30 per cent less than retail electricity.

“You’re not locked in and can start saving and reducing your carbon footprint right away,” says Knox.

This content is created in sponsorship with Volvo.

Originally published as The start-ups bringing cheap, green energy to Australia