Making the World a Greener Place By Encouraging Solar Power Generation with GO Energy, Australia
Market Dynamics
With the growing clamor against the use of fossil fuels and the ecological damage caused by the same, Australian Government has been focussing on harnessing the power of sun for generating clean energy. It encourages Australian households and business owners to install solar panels & inverters to meet their electricity requirements and provides various incentives like renewable energy certificates (RECs) on complying with the installation. The Solar Credits program is part of Australia’s Renewable Energy Target. Every megawatt hour of qualifying energy generation is eligible for RECs. Small-scale technology certificates (STCs) are the RECs that apply to residential solar installations. These are generally considered as a discount on the cost of installing a small solar power generation system. The number of STCs provided varies depending on the size/capacity of the system and where you live.
Client Profile
GO Energy Group Limited (ASX: GOE), an Australian Securities Exchange listed clean technology energy retailer used to offer a plethora of renewable solutions in line with the Australian Government renewable energy policy. The company focused on reducing energy costs through a combination of solar power purchase agreements, energy efficiency products and grid energy solutions. A part of GO Energy group, CO2 Markets was one of the Australian solar sector’s largest solar STCs (Small Scale Technology Certificates) aggregator, a registered STC trading agent with the Australian Clean Energy Regulator (CER) that could purchase unregistered STC assignment forms for individuals & companies. It used to process thousands of STC assignment forms with the CER after ensuring regulatory compliance. The registered STCs were thereafter sold in the STC SPOT market.
Client Requirement/Business Problem
With rising IT costs, GoEnergy was looking for a reliable and scalable offshore IT solution partner who could help them to fulfill their information technology development & maintenance requirements at reasonable costs. The market being highly competitive and evolving, there was a constant need to improve the IT infrastructure, develop new modules to improve the business processes through intelligent use of latest technology.
Empowered by OpenCubicles!
OpenCubicles set up a dedicated team of experienced software engineers for handling their IT requirements comprehensively and efficiently. Also, given the extensive experience of OpenCubicles core team, especially that of our founder, in the Australian renewable energy sector (deeply rooted in STC trading/compliance), it was a strategic fit for Go Energy. Working in close cooperation with CO2Markets tech team, we helped them achieve scale and stability in the most cost-effective way. During a period of rapid evolution & growth, OpenCubicles:
- Maintained and extended their STC compliance and trading platform to make sure it is always up to date with latest CER requirements
- Ensured that their iOS/Android field installer app works seamlessly
- Helped in building technology infrastructure to get their certifiction approved from Gas Retail Markets – AEMO
- Built numerous modules in their Salesforce CRM platform for electricity retailing; this process automation led to considerable manpower cost savings
- Helped them to bring down their mounting AWS costs to 60%.
For GO Energy Group, OpenCubicles proved to be the IT outsourcing partner they were seeking – offshore, economical and yet as good as their very own extended IT arm!