The Localvolts platform gives you the control to buy and sell electricity to and from the people and organizations that you want to do business with. That means you can buy from your friends and family, or choose to support specific types of generators, for example wind and solar, or other renewables.
Buying Electricity
Buying electricity on the Localvolts is a simple process. Our wizard guides you through the process to of defining the exact details of the purchase you wish to make, and submitting it as a contract to the Localvolts market.
- Select the amount of energy you wish to buy by defining the time frame you wish to buy for
- Decide who you wish to buy from
- Review the offers that are available in the market and adjusting your preferences if desired
- Confirm your selections and submit your contract
- Set the system to repeat your purchase automatically in the future if desired (renewal).
Start by navigating to the Buy Electricity menu item and select “Create Contract”. This will take you to the Create Contract wizard.
Screen 1: General Setup
This screen is where you will define the basic details of your contract.
- Select your property(s): This drop down menu allows you to decide whether this contract will apply to all of your properties, or just one of them.
- Select Your calendar period: Select the start date and the end date for this contract. For example you can select the entire month of January by choosing January 1 in the first field and January 31 in the second.
- Select your time of day: Select the time of day that this contract will apply to. For example, selecting 0:00 in the first field and 06:00 in the second field will tell the Localvolts system that this contract will only apply to energy consumed between midnight and 6am. Note: If this is your first contract we recommend leaving these fields set to the default: 00:00 and 24:00
Once you have configured these three settings, the total energy that you will consume during this period (based on your consumption profile) will be displayed below.
The final field on this screen is “How much to include in this contract”. This allows you to select the percentage of the total energy defined by the above settings, that you wish to include in your contract. If you are unsure, we recommend leaving this as 100%.
Once you are happy with your contract click “Next”.
Screen 2: Choose your supplier
This screen allows you to select who you wish to buy from. The field marked “Enter Supplier Preference Here” is an open search field that will offer a variety of options based on your input. It is designed to allow you to select suppliers based on the following criteria:
- User: Entering the username of a specific Localvolts user will allow you to select suppliers by name.
- Location: Entering a postcode will allow you to select an area that you wish to buy from.
- Generator type: Entering a type of generator (E.g. solar or wind) will allow you to buy energy based on a the method used to generate the electricity.
Once you are happy with those selections, click “Next”.
Screen 3: Confirm Your Purchase
This screen will match your preferences to the offers available in the Localvolts market and show you exactly what you can expect. The top section of this screen, “Purchase summary” is just that. An overview of your purchase.
The “Detailed View by Supplier” section displays each of the users that have matched your criteria. Here you can see the price you can expect to pay per kilowatt hour and the volume that each user will contribute to your purchase.
The price cap function above the table allows you to set a price cap to eliminate offers that are above a certain price.
Once you are happy with your purchase settings click “Next”
Screen 4: Unmatched unit
In some cases the market will not have a seller ready to provide you with a match to your requirements. If this is the case you will be asked what you would like to do with your unmatched units.
Option 1 is to send them back into the market with a price cap. The market engine will match your requirements to offers as they enter the market, if they are under your maximum price cap. If no matches are found you will pay Spot price for the unmatched units.
Option 2 is to simply pay spot price for the unmatched units.
Clicking “Confirm” at this point will create the required contracts and your energy purchases will be made.
Purchase renewals
The next screen will ask you if you would like to create a renewal order based on these settings. A renewal is a way to automate your purchases by running a recurring order.
The renewal process is very similar to the buying process.