Exchange4solar.com – Indian B2B Online Platform Offering Comparison Shopping for Rooftop Solar Projects
An offering that manages risks and helps customers in buying solar energy installation coupled with easy financing. This startup can play an important role in driving use of solar in the country.
Founders and their inspiration
This story is about two highly passionate individuals who came together to build a unique B2b marketplace for installing rooftop solar energy in India.
Thinking on the lines of the government’s policies/aim to generate 40,000 MW of solar energy by 2022; the founders of exchange4solar.com saw this segment as a big opportunity.
Since the marketplace is full of 1000+ solar installing companies offering projects with a variety of components at various price points, it leaves the buyer confused about switching to solar.
Souarabh Jain and Vignesh Sivakumar are the two young minds behind the synergy named Exchange4solar. Their sensitivity and inclination towards issues relating to the environment conservation and sustainable living helped them conceptualize this startup.
While Sourabh, a ‘Chevening’ scholar with fellowship in ‘Economics of energy in low-carbon economy’ and has also been listed as one of the 50 thought leaders in the Indian solar energy sector; Vignesh holds a master’s degree in business administration FMS Delhi.
Sourabh has been working in the solar space for more than 7 years. While convinced about the economic benefits that switching to solar offers to a roof owner, he was very surprised with the low adoption rate and long time it took companies to decide on going solar.
Their bright and enterprising team strongly believes: “The time is right is for people to adapt to green ways of living and solar energy is the best way forward.” As an added benefit, businesses which embrace the solar energy will also earn green credentials in the process.
How do things work in exchange4solar?
With the whole vision of simplifying the process involved in installation of solar power structures in office premises and residential complexes; the founders extended support to the roof owners.
Eliminating the tricky areas and introducing a platform to compare prices and deals on installation, exchange4solar is helping everyone involved. The end result of giving clarity, in majority of cases brings the interested parties to stop postponing their solar plans indefinitely.
The team of exchane4solar made it possible for people to accelerate the decision making process for opting for solar energy and invest a big amount. Gone are those days when such decisions used to take almost a year to happen.
This was considered quite natural considering, a high investment purchase as for most businesses solar PV is a non-core investment. Also, clients do not have any prior experience but a strong business case from a trusted platform like exchange4solar can prove helpful.
Amidst the interaction Sourabh Jain said, “We want to make switching to solar as easy as buying a mobile online. We want to provide the same level of trust and quality assurance at a competitive price.”
This can be done in two simple steps:-
1. Outright purchase of a rooftop solar project.
2. Or buy solar power from their roof and save money without making any investment in the project. This is known as BOOT or a PPA model wherein investment is made by 3rd party investors and the customer sign an agreement to buy solar power from the project implemented on his roof by the investor.
An offering that manages these risks and helps customers with the buying process coupled with easy financing can play an important role in driving use of solar in the country. We jumped at the opportunity to solve this problem.
Discussing the USP of exchange4solar.com
They are acting as their in-house solar expert and help them go solar with confidence knowing that they are getting the right technology, suitable vendor and that they are not paying a price higher than they should. Additionally they get an independent exchange4solar assurance on quality of all projects executed by solar installers on our platform.
Digging deeper into this, when leading the rooftop solar business for a large EPC player, the reasons started showing up in form of high investment costs, lack of standardization in quality & pricing and also inability to establish reliability of claims made by vendors during the sales process. The risk is perceived by customers due to these factors outweigh the economic benefits, thereby increasing the difficulty in decision making by customers.
Market Size, Revenue Generation, Early Traction:
The Indian Government has set a target of 40,000 MW of rooftop solar capacity addition against currently installed rooftop solar capacity of 600 MW (1.5% of targeted capacity). This is equivalent to 4 lac companies (including SMEs) putting up a rooftop solar system. The available market potential is pretty large and we are playing role of a catalyst to drive the solar eco-system.
Exchange4solar.com has supported solar projects of some of the leading brands such as ICICI Bank and Dominos. We have also supported projects for industries, hospitals, educational institutes and residential societies.
Rooftop solar forms 70% of installed solar capacity in countries like Germany, Spain, Italy vs 10% for India. We are here to support Indian companies become self-reliant for their power requirements and become more competitive.
Exchange4solar is part of AIM smart cities accelerator working on making Indian cities smarter. Reputed corporates like Dalmia Cements and Holostik are investors in exchange4solar. Microsoft Ventures, Ashoka University and ISB Hyderabad are the sponsors of AIM smart cities accelerator.
