Europe’s largest companies consume a lot of electricity. But, could they be getting all their power from renewable energy sources? There’s a startup who believes that's the future.

‍What’s happening:‍

• Copenhagen based energy technology startup Reel has raised €5M in a new seed round
  
• The round was led by Transition with participation from UVC Partners, The Footprint Firm and others
  

The big idea:‍

• Reel is aiming to change how large companies do their power purchase agreements by accelerating their transition to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar
  
• Reel is able to quickly analyze the power consumption of any company through their data platform and determine exactly how much electricity they need
  
• Once Reel has identified the collective power consumption required, they are able to contract a developer to build out small solar or wind farms in order to directly supply the company with carbon free electricity
  
• Reel then guarantees fixed pricing for that electricity over multiple years in order to provide a transparent and reliable solution to integrating renewable energy
  

Why it matters:‍

• Electricity is the largest source of carbon emissions that exists and finding sustainable ways to adopt renewable energy sources could unlock enormous benefit for the climate
  
• Many large companies are looking to find ways to reduce their carbon emissions but have not found a way to secure reliable renewable energy
  

By the numbers:‍

• Approximately only 1% of large companies have a supply of low carbon electricity
  
• Carbon emissions are expected to increase by 2x within the decade without new climate technology and innovation
  

Going deeper:‍

• Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) was an early investor in Seattle based renewable energy company LevelTen who has built a technology platform that enables large companies to adopt renewable energy sources by quickly comparing various power purchase agreements from solar energy and wind farms
  
• Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has entered into multiple power purchase agreements with renewable energy companies, including their notable partnership with leading Seoul based solar company QCells

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