THE POSTCODE LOTTERY GREEN CHALLENGE, FOUR YEARS ON
I can still see myself sitting on that designer sofa at the trendy Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam, surrounded by my parents and family. I'm staring like an idiot at a giant cheque about a metre across. There it is in black and white: half a million euros. Half a million euros. Half a million euros. I keep reading it over and over. I just can't believe it.
Four days earlier, I'd checked in to embark on what in hindsight would turn out to be a big rollercoaster ride: the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge. I was chosen with four other finalists out of more than 400 entrants from around the world. Of course, that alone made things nerve-racking. Who were the others? What had they invented? Did I fit in the line-up? And, of course, everyone was secretive about their plans and how they were going to present them. You didn't want to give your competitors any ideas.
Sure enough, in the professionally delivered media training sessions, they covered teaching and presentation techniques. They asked us to give our presentations to the group, so we could learn from each other. This immediately ratcheted up the tension. No one dared say it, but we weren't about to do that. We looked at each other, with nervous coughs, forced smiles, and most of all, resolve: no way were we going to reveal our presentations. We'd do our pitch training individually or we wouldn't do it at all. We argued a bit over the order we'd be presenting in, but after drawing lots to make it fair, we buried that axe too. The tone had been set.
Outside working hours, the atmosphere was remarkably good. There was lots of talking and laughing, and I hit it off right away with Michel Smit from Rotterdam, whose entry was the Sustainable Dance Club, an electricity-generating dance floor. I also got on well with Andy from The Green Thing. But that night as I was waiting in the hall for my turn at pitch training, I heard music blasting through the heavy door – it was Michel's hip video for his equally hip dance floor. And there I stood with my Qbox, a pathetic little plastic box made out of grey PVC. How could I beat a cool invention like that, with a fantastic video and driving music to boot? It was then that the first real nerves weighed heavy on my heart.
In the end, my presentation went well. The contrast between the huge global problem of climate change and the tiny plastic box turned out to provide me with a hook. The promise that lots of little actions can have a big impact was and is the perfect metaphor for the idea behind Qurrent and the Qbox. The day after the official presentations, Virgin boss Richard Branson announced Qurrent had won the first Green Challenge. That night, I (and all my friends and acquaintances from way back into the past, who'd all emailed or phoned) watched myself high-fiving Branson on the NOS TV news and him hugging me like an old friend he hadn't seen in years. Wow, what a ride.
That was almost four years ago. And when I look back now, that four-day rollercoaster ride seems like a test for what was to follow. Because the ups and downs haven't stopped since the Green Challenge. Qurrent wasn't just on the NOS news but also on the RTL4 news and in all the big Dutch daily papers, in South African magazines, Italian business papers, Japanese blogs, the American Airlines magazine, Australian publications, and so on and so forth.
Of course, all the international attention came a bit too early (and that's an understatement), just as Qurrent itself was actually born slightly prematurely. On the TV news, I tried to explain what the Qbox did: "If your solar panels are making electricity and you're not at home, your neighbours can use it, and you can use theirs later. The Qbox takes care of it all for you automatically." I can still hear myself saying it.
Four years later, I understand how naive I was back then. I thought the energy business and the law would adapt to my plans. But things didn't go that way. A lot of people liked my plan – but not the investors. I spoke seriously to more than 30 of them, and they all gave me the same verdict: great idea, but too risky.
And things weren't much smoother on the legal side. For one thing, you're not allowed to provide your neighbours with electricity. Not only that, you're not even allowed to provide yourself with electricity if there's any distance between your solar panels and your home – if you live in a flat, for instance. By definition, old laws don't take account of new ideas, and no one seems inclined to change them in a hurry. So in the last few years, I've gradually become a lobbyist as well as an entrepreneur. I set up a temporary lobbying group, Decentraal Duurzaam Nu; I spoke with Housing Minister Cramer and Prime Minister Balkenende about the impediments to Decentraal Duurzaam Nu; and finally, I became the co-founder and vice-chair of De Groene Zaak, a group of entrepreneurs fighting for a green economy.
And it's all happened thanks to the Green Challenge. Without this brilliant initiative, I wouldn't have had all these opportunities, and my company wouldn't have survived. The Green Challenge gave me the money, the time, the network, and most of all the visibility I needed to get a new, disruptive innovation off the ground.
Over the past four years, I've celebrated wonderful victories and experienced deep lows. It was and is a rollercoaster ride. But now the world is truly ready for Qurrent – local power companies are popping up everywhere, solar panels have got much more competitive, and even legislation is finally moving forward. As we speak, the Dutch MP Diederik Samson has nearly got so-called self-provision through the Netherlands' House of Representatives. The example I gave four years ago on the TV news could soon be legally permitted at last.
Qurrent recently entered an exciting new phase, and we're hard at work bringing our new dream power company to the market. There'll be more news after the summer. The time has come!
