In contestable electricity markets, all of us can buy electricity from a retailer of our choice. The electricity retailer sells electricity to us at a fixed rate, or at rates that depend on the time of day. If we don’t like the retailer, we can choose a different one. It is a bit like choosing our banks.

Some of us like to buy green, and can do so by paying more for our retailer’s green products.

Many of us have decided to take more control of our energy by making our own electricity and exporting the excess to the grid, but as the sun doesn’t shine all the time, we buy the additional electricity from our retailer. This same retailer may or may not pay us for any energy exported during daytime.

This is how the world generally looks like for all of us buying electricity at present.

Localvolts will open up the wholesale and retail electricity markets so individuals can make their own decisions about buying and selling energy.

This is a simple idea with complex implementation.

Localvolts will allow people to buy and sell electricity directly. Consumers will have the opportunity to choose not only what type of electricity they want to buy, but also how much they are willing to pay.

On the other side of the equation, people who generate electricity can set their own prices, rather than getting whatever the big electricity providers give them. But not only that, they can choose who they sell to, perhaps just supplying family members for free, or working together within a community to reduce electricity prices.

This will create a genuine, fair market place, where people have choice about what they do with the electricity they produce, and real choices about who they pay to generate electricity for them.

Peer to peer electricity means doing business with real people, not with big electricity companies.