Slashing CO2The solar shared economy.
Big Picture
Latin America’s largest economy and energy consumer relies on hydropower for two-thirds of its electricity. Yet, 80% of Brazil’s hydro capacity is literally evaporating due to climate-fueled droughts, driving price hikes, blackouts, and fossil fuel imports. Despite being sunnier than any part of solar PV-rich Germany, solar makes up only 1% of Brazil’s power mix. Retail consumers struggle to pay the upfront costs needed for renewables and archaic suppliers remain too analog to adopt and manage intermittent generation.
How it Works
Lemon connects retail power consumers with clean energy generators. Remote plants pump clean energy into the grid, generating a supply of credits bought by consumers to cover their power demand. Small- and medium-sized businesses gain instant savings, a vastly improved digital customer experience, and access to clean energy without installation or money down. Generators double earnings from enhanced retail market access and gain streamlined billing, collection, and energy management abilities.
Unfair Advantage
By digitizing an analog market, Lemon arbitrages the low and falling cost of distributed clean energy and the high and rising cost of retail electricity. Their asset-light business model drives network effects as increasing power supply and consumer demand lower overall unit economics and increase margins. Lemon’s automated platform also enables customers to sign up within minutes without ever speaking to the sales rep. Once on board, consumers will never see a paper bill again.
20
percent savings
on energy bills with no money down
RAFAEL VIGNOLI CEO & CO-FOUNDER
Rafa previously founded numerous small- and medium-sized businesses, including chains of health clinics and wellness centers.
ARIEL BOZZA AMAR CFO & CO-FOUNDER
Ariel was previously a private equity researcher at Itaú BBA, Latin America’s largest corporate investment bank.
LUCIANO PEREIRA CTO & CO-FOUNDER
Luciano was previously CTO at Brazilian fintech startup Ewally. He holds a B.Eng and M.Sc. from Instituto Technológico de Aeronáutica.
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