Merely a month back, Restart Energy announced its first global Type A franchise in Italy. Now, we wish to announce a further milestone, reaching all the way across the ocean to North America — our first franchise in the United States, which will be located in the north-westernmost state of Washington. As the U.S. is a federated government with large legislative autonomy given to its member states and with very high populations per state, the Restart Energy franchise model considers each state functionally as a ‘country’, therefore requiring a Type A franchise before it can be supplied by RED.

Not only will this be the first-ever US franchise for RED, it also gives us the opportunity to unveil the newest addition to the Restart Energy franchise model — the Type C franchise! This is a franchise especially designed for companies that want to develop renewable energy projects, where RED offers access to its RED Platform engineering support and a business plan for the development of renewable energy systems in countries or states that support green energy. The token requirement for a Type C franchise is the same as that for a Type B Master Franchise.

Taking on the role of our first-ever Master Franchise for Renewable Energy Development (Type C) will be our new partner, Washington Renewable Energy Corporation (WREC) — a company focused on providing diverse renewable energy solutions to the state of Washington, specializing in solar energy production and supply, headquartered in Wenatchee, Chelan county. As the first franchise of its kind, WREC will be closely working with our experienced team of solar experts to bring a new generation of PV stations online. WREC founder, Mr. James Baxter, has throughout his career been on the leading edge of renewable energy and education. His work concentrates on the Sustainable Natural Alternative Power (SNAP) program. Founded in 2000, SNAP has overseen the installation of renewable solutions in 21 schools, 7 non-profit agencies, 57 private generation facilities, 2 colleges, 2 public facilities, and 1 community solar project. SNAP’s production can be categorized as such: 486,401 kWh solar, 15,236 kWh wind, 316 kWh hydro; resulting in a total output of 501,953 kWh (ending on 31.06.2018). With the signing of a memorandum between RED and WREC, the stage is set for developing this new type of energy franchise in the state of Washington.

While still a partially regulated energy market, the state of Washington is a leader in the US in terms of renewable energy initiatives, such as the aforementioned SNAP, branching out into dozens of programs from a 40 million dollar fund to improve renewable energy efficiency and production, to a tax rebate of 30% to help both residential consumers and businesses to acquire solar panels effectively incentivizing and laying the groundwork for the creation of a multitude of prosumers in the state. The state of Washington has also mandated that 15% of its energy consumption comes from new energy sources — i.e energy not generated from fossil fuels. Washington state also offers strong business incentives for setting up and generating solar and other renewable energy types within its borders — tax reductions for PV systems manufacturers, sales & tax credits for green energy production equipment, to name but a few.

Washington state is transitioning more and more towards renewable sources, with only one coal-fired power plant left — the Centralia Big Hanaford power plant. Even this last vestige of a bygone age has already received its death knell, through the TransAlta Energy Transition Bill, signed in 2011; this bill outlines the decommissioning of both boilers — the first in 2020 and the second one by 2025. Already, two-thirds of the energy produced in the state comes from hydroelectric sources, mostly coming from the imposing Grand Coulee Dam, that year-on-year generates approximately 28% of America’s hydroelectric power (the closest contenders are Oregon and California, with 14% and 12%, respectively); it is among the largest dams in the world and holds 7th place in terms of installed power capacity. Regarding renewable energy growth, solar solutions lead, powering 12,123 homes, with 14,542 installations, providing 3,433 jobs, with a growth projection of 452 MW over the next 5 years, and boasting a total state investment of nearly 400 million USD.

The Washington-state franchise is significant for several reasons: being the first RED franchise in the US, being our first Master Franchise for Renewable Energy Development (Type C), and for being the crucial starting point for further expansion into The States — collectively the second largest energy market by consumption worldwide. This milestone in our global expansion will provide invaluable brand exposure and opportunities for our company for years to come.

About Restart Energy

Restart Energy Democracy (RED) is a blockchain-powered platform, backed by Restart Energy — a European energy provider with 20 million USD in revenues. The company was built with a vision to democratize the energy sector and quash the dominance of legacy monopolies in the energy world. The company’s credentials include a customer base of 27,000 household and 3,000 corporate clients, expanding at more than 2,000 clients per month (5,000 new customers in the first two months of 2018), and its impressive growth: 1700% from 2015 until today.

Restart Energy is developing the world’s first peer-to-peer, fully decentralized energy transfer platform allowing users to send and receive energy worldwide, based on its proprietary virtual balancing system, that uses A.I., Big Data, and IoT technologies. The RED ecosystem is comprised of the RED-Platform, RED-Franchise and RED-MWAT Tokens.

The RED-Franchise is the first power retail franchise to simplify and allow any company or entrepreneur to operate their own power utility enterprise, enabling them to start selling energy in more than 35 deregulated energy markets globally.

MWAT tokens are crypto-tokens that enable the buying and selling of up to 1 MWh of electricity per month on the RED-Platform Software and will facilitate the development of affordable clean energy, through free-market practices. Upon completion of registration on the platform, an initial loyalty bonus of 0.11 kWh is applied. Producers send out monthly loyalty bonuses through the RED Loyalty System, totaling 1–5% of traded on-grid energy in exchange for access to the RED Platform.

Importantly, it should be noted that potential franchise partners will need to own (this is not a form of payment to us) a certain number of MWAT tokens, in order to qualify for our various franchise tiers — the secret to our award-winning growth as a business!

For more information, please visit our website, our Telegram, and read the Restart Energy whitepaper. Join our announcement channel for updates regarding Restart Energy Democracy.