The founder
Gaël graduated from the Ecole Centrale Paris in 2002 before embracing a career in the energy industry, working as an engineer and project manager on various large hydropower and oil&gas projects.
He then began to think about the need to question our relationship with energy, and possible ways of producing it at smaller scale in an urban setting ; he founded SKAVENJI in Nice at the end of 2016.
More about Skavenji
SKAVENJI is a young startup based in Nice which aims to put consumption of self-produced power within everyone’s reach, by making production of small amounts of electricity as simple and free as growing tomatoes on a balcony.
While this small-scale domestic production does not allow users to live off-grid or do away with their utility bills, it nevertheless meets their latent need for self-sufficiency and constitutes a first symbolic step, as visible and as gratifying as growing some food.
The SKAVENJI approach has the same social and educational benefits and also marks a creative commitment to sustainable consumption.
SKAVENJI’s goal is therefore to develop a plug-and-play, open source solution that is sustainable, low-tech, frugal and adaptable, allowing its users to create their own renewable energy and play a part in energy transition, both individually and collectively. Its solution is based on three elements:
- A box supplied with a small solar panel, able to be easily sited in a living room, office or classroom, and to which it is possible to connect small sources of electricity of various kinds and origins, simply and safely. This “home” production can then be freely consumed in situ.
- A mobile app, to monitor local production and the resulting savings on the utility bill, but also its environmental benefits.
- An open platform to which everyone can contribute, with tutorials to learn how to install one’s own sources of renewable energy : a second-hand solar panel or hand-crafted wind turbine on the balcony, a bike generator in the living room, or whatever the users’ imagination inspires them to try out !
The challenge here is therefore to help a new ecosystem of “energy makers” emerge, and to promote innovation, education and civic re-appropriation of energy issues.
SKAVENJI users will be able to join a rapidly expanding community of enthusiasts who devise, construct, test, use and spread new solutions for the microgeneration of electricity.
Since its founding SKAVENJI has been working with partners such as INRIA, Incubateur Paca Est and CEEI – Nice Cote d’Azur to perfect its prototype, which won several awards in 2017 and 2018, and market its solution.
SKAVENJI successfully completed its first crowdfunding and pre-sales campaign on the ethical platform Zeste , and is now taking further pre-orders here.
SKAVENJI is also a member of the Social Entrepreneurs Movement (Mouves), the Nice Start(s)Up association, and occasionally coworks at Les Satellites in Nice.