Powertracer enables you to buy and sell clean energy with a difference. Instead of a single rate for electricity, trades are conducted that are priced according to the source of the energy and then executed between community members.
By setting your Community Trade prices it means you can:
Buy energy at a price that suits you
Sell energy at a price that makes you happy
Trade energy anonymously with anyone in your community
How do you do this?
set a maximum buy price per kWh for energy that you won't pay more than
set a minimum sell price per kWh for energy that you won't sell for less than (if you have excess solar to sell)
How it works:
Powertracer matches up the highest buy prices with the lowest sell prices available. When each seller’s exported energy is fully allocated we move on to the next lowest sell price and assign buyers until all the available Community energy pool is exhausted or there are no buyers left offering a suitable price.
The price for all Community Trades in a trading period (30 mins) is the same for all buyers and sellers in a community, however this will vary from period to period. Typically the price will be somewhere between the maximum buy and minimum sell prices in the community (see case study below).
Who’s in your community?
People who have signed up with the same energy retailer as you and are in the same state.
Community Trading Case Study
We have an example community made up of three people (in reality, this will be much larger):
Jane lives in a house with solar on the roof
John lives in an apartment without solar installed
Ian lives in the same street as John and doesn’t have solar either.
Each of the community members has set their community prices as follows:
Jane has offered to sell her excess solar to the community at a price she chooses, such as 8c/kWh, Jane's Minimum Community Sell Price
As John can’t install solar at his apartment he’s offering to pay at most 15c/kWh, John's Maximum Community Buy Price
Ian likes the idea of clean energy as long as the price is similar to grid energy so will pay at most 14c/kWh, Ian's Maximum Community Buy Price
Powertracer rewards first the buyers who offer the highest, and the sellers who are willing to accept the lowest price – but everyone in the “pool” receives the same price per unit of energy.
When Jane has excess solar energy to sell to the Community, Powertracer allocates solar energy first to John – as he offered the highest Maximum Community Buy Price of 15c/kWh – and, if there is any remaining energy from Jane, Ian will have the next opportunity to buy. Jane’s excess energy is allocated because she was prepared to sell excess solar into the community at 8c/kWh (and is the only seller in this example).
After the energy is allocated the buy/sell prices of the last pair to be matched up are averaged (in this case the mid point of Janes 8c/kWh offer and Ian’s 14c/kWh bid) and that sets the price at 11c/kWh for all of Jane’s excess energy.
Fair community trading
The Powertracer algorithm is fair and matches the lowest price offer with the highest price bid first, and then cascades down through the community to the sell and buy prices in the middle of the range. This rewards the most generous community members with the best allocations of traded energy but allows for a single market price for everyone.
Learn more
Want to know more about how the trading works?