Pionierkraft GmbH

Regional peer-to-peer energy sharing with attractive financial, social, and environmental returns.

Company Description:

Pionierkraft provides an innovative energy sharing solution, which allows a photovoltaic system owner to share excess energy with adjacent households in an economical and operator-friendly manner. The heart of the solution is the hardware, which realizes for the first time a standard-compliant coupling of individual household grids. Depending on local energy generation and demand, it transmits self-generated renewable energy between at least one prosumer and one or more consumer households. Our intelligent control algorithms regulate the energy flow between the coupled grids completely autonomous. Any existing battery storage can also be integrated into our system, thereby optimizing the onsite consumption of renewable energy even further. Monitoring and control are done via our web-based platform, which can be accessed via a browser or smartphone app. The platform collects all energy transmission data and automatically generates electricity bills and any necessary reports for authorities and distribution grid owners, thereby eliminating any administrative effort for the PV plant owner.

Video Pitch:

By minimizing administrative, operating, and investment costs for local renewable energy sharing, Pionierkraft’s solution fills the existing gap for economical PV solutions in smaller residential buildings and makes affordable renewable energy available to a wider range of consumers.

Pionierkraft was founded with the goal and motivation to develop a sustainable solution which increases the proportion of energy produced and consumed locally, gives more people access to affordable, renewable energy, and allows owners of photovoltaic systems to share the energy they generate with adjacent households in an economical and operator-friendly manner.
PIONIERKRAFTwerk is the name of the solution and our initial main product, therefore having a huge impact on our future company growth. It could keep millions of existing residential PV rooftop systems commercially operational after dropping out of fixed feed-in tariffs in the coming years. Furthermore, it allows for the first time commercially feasible renewable energy generation and sharing within multi-family residential buildings. Together both segments are estimated to have a total market potential of 16.1 billion €. With the successful commercialization of PIONIERKRAFTwerk we anticipate boosting our annual revenues to 23.7 million € in 2025.

Country

Germany

Year Founded

2019

Company Phase

Development & Production Phase

Please specify in what phase you are!

In early 2020 we closed a successful seed financing with EIT InnoEnergy as lead investor and several business angels. We implemented the first field pilot in southern Bavaria (TRL6) with the 1-to-1 sharing solution including the MVP of our web-based platform. In order to bring our innovation successfully into the market, we have planned to implement further reference projects with partners like Gelsenwasser AG or Varta AG and finalize CE-certification by the end of 2020.

Number of employees

5-25

Existing Sponsors & Partners

EIT InnoEnergy (Leadinvestor)
Lacon Electronic GmbH (CEO R. Hasler is one of the investors of Pionierkraft GmbH)
EGT
EWR (first pilot test implemented)
Gelsenwasser AG
Accelerators like SCE, LMU EC, AXEL Energy Accelerator, SmartGreen Accelerator; Gründerland Bayern
focus.energie e.V. (energy network)

Did you get funding?

Yes, Investors

Investment needed?

Yes, in the near future

Milestones

EXIST-Grant 2019: Winner of “Perfect Match” and “Start? Zuschuss!”
2020: Seed-Financing with EIT InnoEnergy and several Business Angels
2020: Winner of “Science4Life Energy Cup”
2020: Implementation of the first pilot test