"Crowdfunding allows people to actively participate in the energy transition"

Founded in 2016 and based in Bern, Solarify has been pursuing a simple goal for a decade: to democratize solar investment through crowdfunding. Its model allows individuals as well as businesses to invest directly in solar installations without owning their own roof.

Concretely, investors become owners of one or several modules installed on the roof of an SME, a farm, a school or a municipal building, in their region or elsewhere in Switzerland. Solarify takes care of installation, operation, maintenance, insurance as well as the marketing of the electricity produced. Each quarter, the owners of the panels receive their share of the revenues from the sale of that electricity and can monitor their production online.

This company offers us an excellent opportunity to continue our series of interviews devoted to new forms of solar communities, like the recent CEL and RCPv. Interview with Lukas Krienbuehl, member of management and head of communications and crowdfunding.

How does your model differ from RCPv or CEL?

Solarify already operates several participatory solar installations — notably in Graubünden, in Bern or in Central Switzerland — whose marketing strategy is based on the RCPv or CEL model. Our model allows the population to actively participate in Switzerland’s energy transition without having to own a single-family house or build their own installation.

By becoming owners of one or several modules installed on a third‑party roof, participatory investors receive every three months the revenues from the sale of their electricity, directly into their bank account. RCPv and CEL thus constitute, among others, channels to valorize the solar electricity produced by our participatory projects.

Could crowdfunding be a good way to develop these future ultra-local solar production models?

Absolutely. We are currently in discussions with several municipalities that wish to supply all of their public buildings with solar energy through a CEL. Combining a photovoltaic installation and a battery with citizen crowdfunding constitutes an attractive model to develop local solar production and sell it locally.

During the June heatwave, intraday electricity prices also remained high despite maximum sunshine.

Is it still really possible to obtain a return on investment on new solar installations, given that summer production peaks are increasingly large and electricity prices sometimes become negative?

Yes, it is still quite possible to obtain a return on investment on photovoltaic installations of a certain size — as with our first project in French-speaking Valais, in Evionnaz — when they are coupled with a battery and intelligent management of electricity flows. The optimal combination of production, self-consumption and storage is essential: it allows the electricity to be valued at the time of day when its value is highest, whether on-site or by injection into the grid.

With an energy management system, it is possible, for example, to control the charging and discharging of the battery in order to avoid injection peaks at midday. In addition, our profitability calculations already incorporate the strong seasonal and daily variations of feed-in tariffs.

During the June heatwave, intraday electricity prices also remained high despite maximum sunshine. Several nuclear power plants indeed had to reduce their production due to the high temperature of rivers in Switzerland, while reservoir water levels were low.

Between urban and rural areas, in which contexts are these solar communities best suited?

The central question for these solar communities lies in the profile of local consumers: who uses the electricity produced on-site? For one of our participatory installations, it is, for example, all the buildings of a medico-social institution spread across the same neighborhood.

In other cases, it may be a neighboring company located in an industrial area, or farms and residents of the same village. Different contexts - urban as well as rural - can therefore lend themselves to this type of model, provided there is sufficient and structured local demand.

Is this decentralized vision of solar energy the best solution for the future of photovoltaics in Switzerland?

Consuming electricity locally is a relevant approach: it helps reduce injection peaks into the grid and better valorize locally produced energy. However, this solution is not a panacea and cannot be applied identically to all installations in all cases.

What could be the consequences of these solar communities on the price of electricity?

CEL and RCPv are mechanisms intended to promote local electricity consumption. As long as the tariff discounts granted to these solar communities remain as modest as in Switzerland currently, their impact on the electricity price paid by the end consumer, set annually by the local supplier, will remain limited.

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