Seedia: solar power for smarter and greener cities
The urban furniture offered by Polish startup Seedia is of a special kind. Powered entirely by solar energy, they contribute to making the cities where they are installed more pleasant, smarter and above all more sustainable. Construction21 met Piotr Hołubowicz, founder of Seedia.
1. Who is SeedIA and could you describe your solutions ?
We deliver solar powered furniture for the cities. We aim to improve the management of cities by disrupting and making public space more functional. We offer several types of products, which are all solar powered : solar benches; but also interactive kiosks, smart trash cans and smart hand sanitizers.
A Seedia solar panel produces 18 Wp. We estimate that one bench will help reduce CO2 emissions by 200kg/bench/year.
2. How do your solutions contribute to make cities more sustainable ?
The main benefit for a city to adopt our solution is that it will offer free and clean energy to its citizens. Our appliances are real energy providers. In Gdynia we implemented 4 solar Bus Shelters - each of them generates 1,2 kW energy which is enough not only to supply energy to led lighting, e-paper screens, ctv cameras, charge mobile phones but also city e-bikes and e-scooters.
We also collect data through our devices, and thus provide a tool for cities’ data management. Last but not least, our devices are also educational, as they help raise awareness of the users. For example, the Seedia app allows users to see the quantity of CO2 emissions they helped avoid.
3. How does your appliances differ from classical urban furniture ?
Our smart solar bench is the very first prototype of a solar bench with integrated solar panels. It is mobile and environment-friendly, as anyone can use it to charge ones battery or other electronic device. It is also educative, showing what solar power can do.
The bench includes: usb sockets, routers, led lightings etc. All our appliances provide free energy and free internet access to final users, thanks to our collaboration with Social Wifi. As users have the possibility to connect on a social platform, it can also be used to make social marketing campaigns. A city can customize the webpage of this hotspot platform to pass messages for example. We also provide them with educational content on CO2 emission, and information on how to improve their environment.
We have also developed a new series of elements for hand disinfection infrastructure in public places. An urban applicance that will be very important for cities who need to adapt quickly to new hygiene rules due to the pandemic we are facing.
Seedia furnitures are also a great tool for city management. Connected to a cloud-based platform, our appliances collect data and provide city managers with information about the density of people in the city, the level of waste etc. Our aim is to help make cities more liveable and smarter thanks to data collection.
4. What is your business model ? Who are your clients ?
In Poland, where our startup is based, we sell directly our product to cities. For other countries, we are currently building a web of distributors, who sell our products and ensure the maintenance such as street signs sellers, open air gym distributors, energy companies.
Our first customer was Innogy, a German company. We thought that businesses would be our main clients, but we chose to focus on municipalities. It is a fresh moment in the market and we had to educate them. Now it is easier, as they are more accustomed to this kind of product.
In fact, our success really depends on the country and their maturity with regards to data. In Canada, Greece, Sweden, municipalities are very active in collecting and managing data. In UK, they are very smart about it and use it to report to citizens how many CO2 emissions have been avoided.
5. Could you describe one of your most emblematic projects ?
We are currently present in 30 countries. Our benches are now in Toronto, Athenes, London, Warsaw...We even won an award in 2018 at the Smart City Expo in Barcelona for our work in Krakow, where the city is creating a web of tiny parks - called “pocket parks” to improve the life-quality of citizens. We have connected all 3 products in the park : solar benches, smart trash cans and interactive kiosk. It is a great demonstrator, showing what it can be done. Now, there are 18 pocket parks in Krakow, it is an opportunity to scale up !
6. What are your business perspectives for the future ?
We obviously want to expand and sell to bigger countries. In R&D we are still developing new facilities, for example, an assistant on weather conditions. We would also like to provide energy for scooter, electric bikes ets...The idea is to provide free energy for all devices thanks to solar power.
