In Germany, there are requirements that are not necessarily advantageous for electricity customers. These include the fact that customers who consume more than 6,000 kW/h per year must replace their old analog electricity meters with modern smart metering devices.
Table of Contents: What awaits you in this article
The state provides specifications: The customer pays
The real problem with this is that it costs customers an extra 100 euros or so per year, without providing them with any benefit. This circumstance has recognized the start-up Zählerfreunde and wants to draw from it a benefit for electricity customers.
What are the benefits for customers?
Zählerfreunde has developed a system that allows them to visualize data from smart metering. These visualizations are used to better understand their own energy consumption. This makes it quite easy to see when the most electrical energy is being consumed. From this, in turn, conclusions can be drawn as to which consumers in the home achieve the highest energy consumption. This is very interesting for every electricity customer.
Electricity customers can derive the greatest benefit from this if they adjust their behavior somewhat. Sometimes only minor changes are enough to save energy in the long term. Ultimately, the less electricity consumed, the lower the environmental impact caused by power plants. In addition, a lot of money can be saved if less electricity is consumed.
The start-up Zählerfreunde ( Photo license Zählerfreunde )
More useful features are in the planning
The meter friends want to expand your system even further so that it offers additional functions. Among other things, a simple tariff comparison is planned. Since the actual consumption values are recorded and available at any time, they can be used to find out about other tariffs. If a provider can be found that charges lower costs for the same consumption, it should be possible to switch providers easily and at any time.
The long-term planning of the meter friends is to the effect that customers can change their current tariff briefly with few clicks. It should also be possible to switch providers. The start-up is confident that this will soon become reality. Since consumption can be evaluated and a change of provider may be made possible, smart metering again has some advantages for all electricity customers after all.
Pre-seed funding has succeeded meter friends
In the meantime, several hundred users from the private sector as well as from various commercial industries have already used the new technology to optimize electricity consumption. Zählerfreunde is therefore itself a little surprised at how great the demand for its development is.
Among the best-known investors in the first round of funding are capacura and venture builder Enpulse. Capacura is one of the best-known early-stage investors. This investor has made early investments in many startups that have since become larger companies. Enpulse is a subsidiary of the well-known energy provider EnBW. The third well-known investor is business angel Erich Wex. Finding such famous investors is already something special for Zählerfreunde.
The ambitious start-up Zählerfreunde sees great potential in your development of new technical possibilities for saving energy. In times of expensive energy, every consumer is concerned with consuming as little as possible because the costs are hardly affordable. That is why it is advantageous for both private consumers and commercial users to be able to save costs. Thanks to smart metering as well as the innovative development of meter friends, this goal can be achieved.
