Lichtblick (company)

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LichtBlick SE

logo
legal form Societas Europaea
founding December 1998
Seat Hamburg , GermanyGermanyGermany 
management Wilfried Gillrath, Gero Lücking, Mustafa Özen, Constantin Eis
Number of employees 500 (2019)
sales over 700 million euros (2018)
Branch Energy supplier
Website www.lichtblick.de

Lichtblick headquarters in Hamburg

The bright spot SE is a power company based in Hamburg. Lichtblick has 625,000 private and commercial customers in Germany (as of August 2018), including 542,000 electricity and 83,000 gas customers. This makes Lichtblick one of the twenty largest German electricity providers .

Ownership

LichtBlick has been part of the Dutch company Eneco since December 2018 , which in turn was bought by the Mitsubishi car company in November 2019 . Until the takeover, Eneco already held a 50 percent stake. The second largest shareholder and chairman of the supervisory board of Lichtblick was the Hamburg entrepreneur Michael Saalfeld. Heiko von Tschischwitz is the company's CEO and founder. Saalfeld is the founder and co-owner of Concord Power GmbH, which together with EnBW planned a combined cycle power plant in Lubmin from April 2002 to February 2004 . Planning for the power plant was discontinued in early 2008 and the property was sold. Concord Power is also the project developer for the NORDAL gas pipeline , which is to cross the ecologically sensitive Peene Valley. In addition, together with Shell , Daimler and VW , Saalfeld was the main shareholder in the BtL market leader Choren Industries . In 2009, Lichtblick's businesses were completely separated from those of the previous, meanwhile insolvent subsidiaries Biomasse-Heizkraftwerk Sulzbach-Rosenberg and Choren Industries.

history

Lichtblick was founded in December 1998 after the liberalization of the electricity market and began supplying electricity to eight households in October 1999. In 2001 Lichtblick was the first company to receive the ok-power label . In 2002 Lichtblick participated in the founding of the Bundesverband Neuer Energieanbieter e. V. (bne) . In October 2007, Lichtblick entered the gas market as the first supplier with a biogas-natural gas mixed product and began supplying seven household customers in Hamburg and its own company headquarters. From 2009 to 2014 Lichtblick developed and sold the combined heat and power plant “home power plant ”. The CHP produced by VW generates heat and electricity. The company brought 1,500 systems to market until sales ceased in May 2014.

In October 2014, Lichtblick received the certificate “Pioneer of the energy transition” from TÜV Süd .

In 2015 Lichtblick took over the energy provider Tchibo Energie. In the past few years Lichtblick has also bought up the three energy providers Nordland Energie, Clevergy and Secura Energie.

As part of the SchwarmStrom strategy, Lichtblick developed the so-called SchwarmDirigent. This software enables the intelligent control and networking of decentralized, renewable systems. Lichtblick has been offering the services of the IT platform SchwarmDirigent on the international market since the beginning of 2016. The first commercial projects have been started with partners in Southeast Asia. Negotiations for further projects are currently underway in several European countries, the USA and Oceania.

As part of the merger of the Innogy sales business with E.ON , Lichtblick will take over around 260,000 customers who have purchased heating power from E.ON in mid-2020 .

Electricity mix

According to their own statement, Lichtblick electricity for private customers comes 100% from hydropower in Germany. LichtBlick publishes a current list of hydropower plants on its website. All of these power plants are in Bavaria . LichtBlick Strom is certified by ok-power and received the grade "very good" from Öko-Test

Biogas

Since autumn 2007, Lichtblick has been offering gas in addition to its electricity product. With this offer, Lichtblick guarantees that at least 5% of the amount of gas purchased by the customer comes from biogas plants . According to its own statements, Lichtblick only sources biogas from plants that do without raw materials such as manure from factory farming and genetically modified plants.

Projects

The mainPower plants

On September 9, 2009, Lichtblick presented an energy partnership with Volkswagen AG . According to press reports at the time, up to 100,000 mini-cogeneration units built by Volkswagen with an electrical output of 20 kW should be installed in private homes as home power plants over the next few years .
At the end of 2010 only 30 "home power plants" were installed; In 2010 some media (e.g. Financial Times Deutschland ) reported significant problems. Lichtblick was still optimistic at the time. After resolving technical problems with the EcoBlue combined heat and power units produced by Volkswagen, over 500 home power plants were built by July 2012. The underlying engines from VW were converted diesel engines from the "Touran" car series. In October 2012 Lichtblick stopped selling the devices in heat contracting and sold the combined heat and power plants until 2014.

As of spring 2014, the company brought 1,000 systems onto the market using heat contracting and sold another 500 units. According to the company, the first home power plants are already running in Italy. On May 28, 2014, it became known that Lichtblick and Volkswagen could not agree on a continuation of the cooperation during contract negotiations and that the project must finally be considered over. Lichtblick is considering (as of May 2014) a claim for damages against Volkswagen.

Swarm Stream

The Lichtblick solution for the operation of “virtual power plants” operates under the brand name “SchwarmStrom”. The control of the power plant pool, which also includes the home power plants, is handled by the software "SwarmDirigent" developed by Lichtblick. The concept: Swarm electricity is created by means of individual generation systems and storage systems, such as combined heat and power plants, photovoltaic systems or batteries, and is formed into an invisible large power plant (virtual power plant). Against this background, Lichtblick is involved as a founding member in the standardization of the integration of decentralized capacities within the framework of the open industry forum VHPready . With the IT solution “SchwarmDirigent” for virtual power plants, Lichtblick is developing a “trend-setting platform for the energy market” according to the magazine Der Spiegel .

Tenant flow

Lichtblick offers tenant electricity under the product name “HeimatStrom” . The company thus offers tenants the opportunity to purchase the electricity produced on site from renewable energies directly. The additional demand is covered by the public power grid . Since March 2014 Lichtblick has been offering tenant electricity in a pilot project in the Yellow Quarter in Berlin-Hellersdorf . The largest roof solar system on residential buildings in Germany is located here on 50 rental houses with around 3,000 tenants. The tenants benefit from a reduced electricity tariff, although there are no subsidies from the EEG fund because the electricity is consumed directly on site.

INEES

In Berlin, the field phase of a research project will run for one year from March 2013, which the federal government declared in 2013 to be the “lighthouse of electromobility ”: INEES (intelligent network connection of electric vehicles for the provision of system services). That means: batteries of e-vehicles should be integrated into the electricity market. The batteries are charged or discharged as required during the charging times. So-called “ secondary control energy ” can be provided for the power grid within minutes . In Berlin, 20 test customers can each use the e-up! For six months. from VW try intelligent charging with so-called swarm current. Project partners are Volkswagen , Lichtblick, SMA Solar Technology and the Fraunhofer Institute IWES .

3E apartment building

In the 3E multi-family house model project, Lichtblick is investigating how the individual aspects of self-generation, self-consumption and electromobility can be ideally coordinated so that the residents in the house can meet their energy needs as independently of external energy supply as possible. The house is equipped with a photovoltaic system on the roof and a block-type thermal power station in the basement. A solar battery in the basement and the mobile batteries of two electric cars store the energy that is not directly used. Lichtblick networks and optimizes this energy system with its IT platform "SchwarmDirigent". The research project is funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety and will run for three years from 2014 to 2016.

Swarm battery

With the swarm battery, Lichtblick is bringing another component of the swarm current concept onto the market. The product is aimed at property owners with a photovoltaic system who also have a storage battery connected. Customers who conclude a so-called swarm battery contract agree that their battery will be integrated into the swarm, which should create a large, virtual memory. For this they receive a fixed premium. In the future, Lichtblick wants to market battery capacity on the balancing energy markets. Early May 2015 were bright spot announced that the company's storage battery power wall of Tesla wanted to offer as a swarm battery. The battery should come onto the German market at the end of 2015.

Smart grid

Lichtblick collaborated with the network operator Stromnetz Hamburg on a practical test for intelligent power grids . The two-year project researched how the power grids can be relieved with the help of block-type thermal power stations. The systems were specifically put into operation when the electricity demand in the local grid was particularly high. The practical test has shown that the concept can be used to react quickly and reliably to local fluctuations in electricity demand. However, the project cannot yet be put into practice because there are no economic incentives for the network operators.

partnership

Lichtblick and the WWF entered into a partnership in 2014 to accelerate the energy transition. According to the press release, the common goal is to achieve 100 percent renewable energies in the electricity, heat and transport sectors by 2050 at the latest.

cooperation

Lichtblick u. a. with the two football clubs Borussia Dortmund and FC St. Pauli . The company supplies the stadiums with green electricity. In addition, fans are offered their own electricity tariffs. In addition, the associations support social projects with the energy provider.

engagement

Lichtblick is committed to both social and environmental projects. According to its own information, the company places one square meter of rainforest in Ecuador under protection per customer per month. LichtBlick is implementing the project together with "Geo protects the rainforest eV" and the regional organization DECOIN . According to the company, 8,300 hectares of rainforest have been protected so far (as of February 2019). In addition to protecting the forests, school projects and measures to improve the income of the population in the region are also supported.

criticism

In contrast to the nationwide green electricity providers Bürgerwerke eG , Elektrizitätswerke Schönau , and Naturstrom AG , Lichtblick does not invest a defined amount in the expansion of renewable energy producers. The Federation of Energy Consumers found in 2004 that Lichtblick had not made any direct investments in systems for generating renewable energy, but gave the company a school grade of two (environmental benefit: 4, price and atomic index: 2, security: 1). In September 2009 Lichtblick announced that it would start large-scale decentralized generation of environmentally friendly electricity on the basis of decentralized mini-cogeneration units, but this project failed (see above).

In order to react quickly to deviations between the forecast and actual electricity consumption of customers, Lichtblick bought conventional electricity on the European Energy Exchange (EEX) in December 2006 and from October 2007 , but did not make this public. According to Lichtblick, it was 0.5% of the total amount of electricity in the first half of 2008. According to its own statements, the company offers “100 percent renewable electricity”; however, the purchased gray electricity is of unknown origin and can therefore also contain atomic and coal electricity. According to its own information, Lichtblick compensates for this reference "by feeding in additional regenerative energy at other hours."

In 2010, there was criticism from FDP and CDU members of the Bundestag, because in 2010 the company deployed a special train as part of an anti-nuclear demonstration. Christel Happach-Kasan (Member of the Bundestag, FDP) criticized the fact that the freedom to demonstrate was "instrumentalized as a marketing instrument".

Awards

  • German Service Prize 2012 and 2013
  • Germany's most customer-oriented energy supplier from 2009 to 2014
  • FOCUS-MONEY: Fairest electricity supplier 2014
  • GreenTec Award 2013 in the communication category for the BVB electricity tariff "Strom09"
  • Energy manager of the year 2013: Heiko von Tschischwitz

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b [1]
  2. ↑ Eneco takes over green electricity provider LichtBlick, is for sale. In: CleanThinking.de. December 20, 2018, accessed March 28, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Consortium around Mitsubishi buys Eneco for more than four billion euros. In: handelsblatt.de. November 25, 2019, accessed December 7, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Lichtblick: We LichtBlicker
  5. ^ Christian Kersting: Russian gas for Hamburg. In: Bild.de. April 1, 2008, accessed October 25, 2008 .
  6. ↑ The NORDAL project. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 17, 2012 ; Retrieved March 29, 2011 .
  7. ^ Fritz Vorholz: Revolution in the tank. In: The time. July 8, 2004, accessed October 25, 2008 .
  8. ↑ LichtBlick: 15 years of LichtBlick history
  9. ↑ LichtBlick: LichtBlick successfully completes entry into the gas market , press release of November 5, 2008.
  10. ↑ Abendblatt-Online: Energy supplier Lichtblick threatens Volkswagen with lawsuit , May 28, 2015.
  11. ↑ klimaretter.info : Lichtblick receives energy transition seal , October 21, 2014.
  12. ↑ Welt-Online: Tchibo sells its electricity customers to Lichtblick , July 21, 2015.
  13. ↑ baulinks.de: Lichtblick wants to establish swarm current concept , June 10, 2015.
  14. ↑ pv-magazine: Lichtblick is now marketing swarm concept internationally , February 15, 2016.
  15. ↑ Maximilian Völkl: E.on at the end of the DAX - Innogy deal has consequences. The shareholder , March 10, 2020, accessed on March 30, 2020 .
  16. ↑ Green electricity for private customers - LichtBlick. Retrieved August 11, 2017 .
  17. ↑ a b Your LichtBlick-Strom is created here. Retrieved March 17, 2018 .
  18. ↑ LichtBlick SE LichtBlick - LichtBlick green electricity (private customer and small business customer tariff). Retrieved March 28, 2019 .
  19. ↑ Green electricity in the test: These are the best providers - ÖKO-TEST. Retrieved March 28, 2019 .
  20. ↑ Climate-neutral green gas - certified and environmentally friendly - LichtBlick. Retrieved March 28, 2019 .
  21. ↑ lichtblick.de: Home Power Station ( Memento of 15 August 2010 at the Internet Archive )
  22. ↑ Energy partnership between LichtBlick and Volkswagen. Retrieved April 8, 2020 .
  23. ↑ Johannes Ritter, Werner Sturbeck and Georg Küffner: Mini power plants for the domestic cellar. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 9, 2009, accessed on September 9, 2009 . Electricity from the boiler room - filling energy gaps with mini power plants , Deutschlandfunk : Environment and Consumers from August 26, 2010.
  24. ↑ About unbalances and starting curves ( Memento from December 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  25. ^ Christian Müßgens: Green electricity: Lichtblick and VW are missing power plant customers . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed March 28, 2019]).
  26. ↑ More than 500 home power plants from LichtBlick | CHP information center. Retrieved March 28, 2019 .
  27. ↑ Distribution of the LichtBlick home power plant suspended | CHP information center. Retrieved March 28, 2019 .
  28. ↑ The home power plant can now be purchased | CHP information center. Retrieved March 28, 2019 .
  29. ↑ BHKW-Infothek: RWE and EnVersum also end micro-CHP contracting | CHP information center. Retrieved March 28, 2019 .
  30. ↑ The Faces of Green Electricity: A Glance of Light in the Fight against Energy Dinos ( Memento from November 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved on July 17, 2014
  31. ↑ Hamburger Abendblatt May 28, 2014: Energy supplier LichtBlick threatens Volkswagen with legal action
  32. ↑ Home power plant failed - Lichtblick and VW go their separate ways. Retrieved May 30, 2013 .
  33. ↑ Winand von Petersdorff: Mini power plants: Lichtblick makes electricity smart . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed March 28, 2019]).
  34. ↑ Daniela Stürmlinger: Lichtblick attacks Hamburg's market leader Vattenfall. March 17, 2014, accessed March 28, 2019 .
  35. ↑ : Lichtblick develops pioneering platform for the energy market . In: Der Spiegel . November 30, 2014 ( spiegel.de [accessed March 28, 2019]).
  36. ↑ Inexpensive rental electricity: HomeStrom® - LichtBlick. Retrieved March 28, 2019 .
  37. ↑ This is where solar electricity flows - the first tenants are supplied with electricity from the roof (on the website die-hellersdorfer.de) ( Memento from May 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  38. ↑ Green electricity reform: Gabriel leaves tenants out in the rain. Retrieved March 28, 2019 .
  39. ↑ Stefan Schultz: Pilot project with a bright spot: VW wants to network electric cars into giant storage systems . In: Spiegel Online . May 29, 2013 ( spiegel.de [accessed on March 28, 2019]).
  40. ↑ Hagen Lang: LichtBlick combines e-cars into a control power plant. Retrieved March 28, 2019 .
  41. ↑ Project: E-fleet with swarm electricity (article on ZfK Online)
  42. ↑ This house is a "lighthouse project for electromobility". August 26, 2015, accessed March 28, 2019 .
  43. ↑ enbausa.de: Lichtblick is building a swarm of battery storage systems .
  44. ↑ cleanthinking.de: Incentives for self-consumption with photovoltaics and storage from Lichtblick .
  45. ↑ spiegel.de: Tesla and Lichtblick forge a power storage alliance .
  46. ↑ Tesla Germany website .
  47. ↑ CHP plants support the power grid. Retrieved March 28, 2019 .
  48. ↑ Smart Grid: Swarm electricity relieves the power grid (article at Euwid Energie Efficiency) ( Memento of the original from May 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.euwid-energiedienstleistungen.de
  49. ↑ WWF and Lichtblick want 100 percent renewable energies by 2050 at the latest (article on grünstromauto.de)
  50. ↑ LichtBlick and WWF accelerate the energy transition wwf.de Cooperation with companies, as of December 1, 2014
  51. ↑ By Dirk Krampe: BVB presents LichtBlick as a new partner. Retrieved March 28, 2019 .
  52. ↑ Lichtblick für das Millerntor (article in Energie & Management) ( Memento of the original from August 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.energie-und-management.de
  53. ↑ Black-Yellow thinks green (article on bundesliga.de)
  54. ↑ Hamburger Abendblatt- Hamburg: Buchtmann is there. December 14, 2013, accessed March 28, 2019 .
  55. ↑ Nature conservation in the rainforest through green electricity from Germany - LichtBlick. Retrieved March 28, 2019 .
  56. ↑ General terms and conditions for power supply for household and commercial customers by LichtBlick. Archived from the original on December 21, 2008 ; accessed on August 24, 2015 .
  57. ↑ Correct, but not clean. In: the daily newspaper. June 12, 2008. Retrieved October 25, 2008 .
  58. ↑ Newsletter from Christel Happach-Kazan, summer 2010 ( Memento of the original from January 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed on August 5, 2013; PDF; 446 kB). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.happach-kasan.de
  59. ↑ Hamburger Abendblatt- Hamburg: A million customers in sight. November 24, 2006, accessed March 28, 2019 .
  60. ↑ Brief justification as PDF on the website Sustainability Prize.de ( Memento of the original from May 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nachhaltigkeitspreis.de
  61. ↑ Presentation of the 2010 award winners on the website iku-innovationspreis.de ( memento of the original from March 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.iku-innovationspreis.de
  62. ^ German service award: Energy category (February 5, 2013). Retrieved March 28, 2019 .
  63. ↑ Contribution to the award on the company blog ( Memento of the original from May 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lichtblickblog.de
  64. ↑ PM140925 customer monitor DE: 2014 - ServiceBarometer AG. Retrieved March 28, 2019 .
  65. ↑ FOCUS Online: Six categories in the test. Retrieved March 28, 2019 .
  66. ↑ The winners have been determined (article on the website ifat.de) ( Memento of the original from May 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ifat.de
  67. ↑ Article on energy and management  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.energie-und-management.de