1. How has SunMoney adapted to the evolving needs and expectations of its consumers?
Z: I think technological advancement which is to be widely adopted for client satisfaction. And I think we are on the forefront of that to start on blockchain and doing tokenized projects. And I think if we forget about the crypto market with the bad reputation and the past of the crypto market, the wide-west of the crypto market, if we look at current projects on blockchain, those are very serious alternatives to our transactions in the real financial world.
And I think blockchain, as in Paris last week, there were huge banks already at these expos with offerings on blockchain. And that’s like Paribas or ABN Amro, mammoth banks, both, as they are present at these blockchain expos seeing it would be the future. This is going to be the platform to do financial transactions, investments, and also monitoring, because it can give you that on the same platform.
I think in terms of client or consumer needs, one of the needs in these troubled times, which we are living in this world, is that when you put your money somewhere, that you have access to that money live. I think the next years will be about that in terms of platform for renewable investments that even institutional investors and private investors demand that monitoring of their money. I think it will be a huge plus for the energy market, because it will make it more transparent and clear, less humbling when a private investor looks at the energy market. It’s unapproachable. If you look at the energy stock market, it’s very much out of a private investor’s reach. Now it will help for people, for clients, for potential clients to actually invest in a whole new market with a whole new dynamics, which was unavailable for private investors for a long time.
I think that’s the most important in terms of consumer needs I would highlight as a plus.
2. Can you share some examples of how SunMoney’s work has positively impacted the lives of its investors as well as the environment?
Z: I’m actually, and I won’t be very humble in this, I’m very proud that we are fulfilling both of our missions stated in our company’s slogan. Make money, we talked about that, and save the planet. I think in the last couple of years, we built a huge social impact around the company. One part of it, is that we have a lot of followers on our social media channels. And all in all, it’s a million people following us.
SunMoney is pushing news about the company, about climate change, tips how you can get involved, tips how you can live a better life in terms of a more environment friendly life and also news about innovation in the world, about which can make the world a better place and all that. So that’s one big social impact we have. We also have a school program where we take elementary school kids to solar power plants and then give them a playful physics lesson on the field that they learn about the basics of living an environment friendly life, how you can be tenderer to your planet.
But I think the most important that these kids learn about it at a very early age, and as they grow up, it will be natural for them that they recycle, that they treat water as a valuable thing on Earth.
And also waste management, being more conscious as a consumer on what we buy and how we treat packaging and also how we treat a product when it’s malfunctioning. So we are trying to be advocates of that. Also, we are doing university speeches and all that to to build awareness about what’s happening in terms of climate change around us.
SunMoney works with Global Compact and I’m also the European Union Climate Ambassador. We are trying to pick up the work of international organizations and governments in a way. That’s what we do, and hopefully on a bigger scale, I think, of all countries and even people reach in the forward of the United States.
3. What are some of the prominent challenges in the renewable energy sector and how is SunMoney addressing them?
Z: Mainly, the biggest challenge in real energy is tech advancement, so technological advancement. The batteries, the grids, all that, which are outside of what we can change. What we can do is experiment with existing technology, pilot existing technology, and of course, wait until the smart grid is adopted.
We’ll see demand is still growing in terms of electricity, forecast for electricity, prices and all that seems to be very constant and stable. I think wide-scale adoption of renewables is in a way, and that’s a challenge for us. When you enter a new market, like a new geography, EU has a fairly good environment for renewables and renewable energy investments, building, buying, maintaining, and operating renewable energy assets.
When you look at the world, it’s very different in every geography, what governments do for companies or give companies who invest in renewables. And so that’s a challenge to build a diverse portfolio of the renewable investments in different geographies is a regulatory challenge that until regulations are not good or not pro-renewable, then companies like SunMoney cannot enter that market because it would be just illogical to do something which is not good financially.
I think that’s also a challenge in the world that some of the governments are very pro-renewables. Some of the governments have the money to build it for themselves. And that’s also a good thing. Look at UAE, what they’ve built in terms of renewables. So they really don’t even need the private sector there for building renewables. They have the money and they know that it’s coming, so they build gigawatts of it. But there are countries outside of Europe which don’t have a system for renewable energy investments, don’t have the incentives, and without the long term contracts for solar power plants or wind. And those are very risky to enter those markets. And some of these markets have great sunny day ratios, like over 300 days of sun a year. And that’s a pity. And then we look forward that these governments adopt some incentive system for companies, for foreign companies to enter. And yeah, that’s also a challenge for us.
4. Can you talk about the importance of community involvement in promoting renewable energy and how SunMoney fosters this sense of community?
Z: Yes. I think a renewable, like environment-friendly solutions are not well explained by media, especially by popular media. So the community building is very important that some people have no knowledge of this field at all. And some people have no knowledge of climate change, and some people deny climate change. That’s like every fifth person on this planet thinks that climate change is a hoax, and that’s unfortunate.
I think for a business model like SunMoney, which has this Community Solar Power program, it’s very important that we go from human to human, as there has to be some an explanation attached to what we do. If people understand what we do and enter the community, they can enter as just silent supporters. That’s why we have so many followers. They just like what we do. We are now 11 years old company. So we see that there was somebody who registered to us five years ago, and came back last year to invest.
So it takes time for people to get the knowledge to feel in that. And I think that’s why it’s important that it’s a huge priority for SunMoney to build a community with community tools, community building tools, and to have a lot of people around us, who actually think that what SunMoney does to saving the world is the question of changing the direction of the flow of big money.
If we put all that big money in to things which are for the planet and make money to, as well as things can make money which are not good for the planet, but we learn that we can make money out of things which are actually good for the planet, therefore good for us as humans, then we can save this world. And that’s the bottom line of everything. That’s the bottom line of fight against climate change. We can address it at every little incident, we can address that as something isolated. But it all comes down to that one thing. Until big money goes into things which are bad for the planet, this planet won’t be saved.
The interview is continued to another part, click here to read.
