🔋 The first prototype of the Energy Society will be built here

The beginning of something really big

The first prototype for the Energy Society will be built in Lund, almost as far south as you can come in Sweden.

The vision is a society where electricity is so cheap and clean that we can have it in abundance, at a low fixed monthly cost.

"This is the beginning of something really big and we say that while standing within 500 meters from where Bluetooth, GSM, dialysis, and modern broadband have been created," says Jonas Birgersson.

He is the internet pioneer who sees great similarities with the change that occurred in the 90s with the telephone network, and what needs to be done today with the power grid.

"Just like the Internet made telephony redundant when we built new cables, local battery storage connected via new freedom cables will create completely new opportunities for decentralized and independent energy solutions.”

Two properties will get solar panels on the roofs, batteries in the buildings and an electrical cable will be drawn between the buildings. The houses will share the energy from the batteries.

Nearby there are several properties that may later be connected to the first two properties.

One building belongs to the property company Wihlborgs, which provides offices and other spaces for Ideon Science Park. It is Sweden's first science park, started in 1983. The batteries will be placed in this building.

"Out with the old and in with the new, our first large battery storage will be placed in a room underground that was previously filled by a local telephone exchange. So we can reuse holes, cable trays, and central space."

The other building is the Blekinge student residence, with 162 apartments.

The two properties will form an energy community. An energy community means that you connect buildings in a smaller system where you can produce, share, recycle, and store energy. It was previously not allowed to share electricity between residential buildings, but this changed thanks to the EU on January 1, 2022.

Through a digital marketplace, the tenants and the association for the energy community will be able to monitor energy consumption and make certain choices.

"By installing freedom cables where the transfer of electricity has no cost, we are taking a big step towards a low fixed price for all the green energy needed in everyday life," Jonas Birgersson explains as we look together at the area where the Energy Society will start to be built.

If all goes as planned, the prototype should be ready to start next year, 2024.

Project Energy Society – all the electricity you need, at a low fixed price

Project Energy Society is run by Warp Institute (the foundation behind Warp News) together with Jonas Birgersson and his company, ViaEuropa.

The goal of the project is to contribute to a development where electricity becomes so cheap and clean that we can have it in abundance, at a low fixed monthly cost.

To achieve this, it is necessary to create small power grids with nearby energy production and energy storage. Then you connect these small networks to each other until you have thousands of small networks interconnected into a large network. The internet is built according to the same logic.

You can read more about Project Energy Society here.

Mathias Sundin
The Angry Optimist