The 1.5°C That Shows Up Whenever Climate Comes Up
As awareness of climate change has risen over the past few years, the number "the 1.5°C threshold" has functioned as more than a mere figure—it has become a goal shared worldwide. This threshold is a core target set at the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, and the effort to limit the rise in the Earth's average temperature to within 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels became a symbol. The reason for setting this temperature ceiling is that once the rise in the Earth's average temperature exceeds 1.5°C, the shock to the Earth's ecosystem and human society becomes far more severe. Put simply, all the activities we have carried out to predict the climate could collapse, and the very concept of climate by season or latitude could change entirely. On May 17, 2023, the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced that there is a 66% probability the Earth's average temperature will cross the 1.5°C threshold within 2027. It explained that this likelihood is growing even greater because of carbon emissions from human activity and the El Niño (an abnormal high-temperature phenomenon) predicted to occur in 2023. To prevent this, the international community is taking various measures such as reducing carbon emissions and increasing renewable-energy consumption, and as part of these efforts early climate-tech brands showed a tendency to concentrate on the energy and materials sectors. Among these brands, the one we introduce today is an energy-solutions company that has staked its entire vision on its name.
The Problem Definition and Solution 1KOMMA5° Discovered
1KOMMA5° (hereafter 1Komma5°) is an energy-software platform company headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, founded in 2021 by Jannik Schall, Micha Grueber, Michael Hinderer, Philip Liesenfeld, and Philipp Schröder. With its technology related to solar power plants and heat pumps, 1Komma5° raised 430 million euros (about 617.5 billion won) in a Series B round in June 2023, growing into a unicorn just 23 months after its founding.
[1Komma5°, which attained unicorn status in just 23 months ©1KOMMA5°]
Under the shared understanding that responding to the climate crisis is urgent, 1Komma5° has made reducing each household's carbon emissions its mission; through smart energy solutions, it helps homes—and more broadly workplaces—cover the electricity they use with renewable energy, so that everyone can realize a carbon-neutral lifestyle while living much as they do now.
1Komma5° has now grown into a company of more than 1,900 climate experts, with employees active at 72 locations across Germany as well as Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Australia, and more. Each team, drawing on its expertise and experience, carries out a variety of projects—solar panels, energy storage systems, EV charging stations, heat pumps, and more—and provides tailored advice to local communities. Their vision is to build systems in 1.5 million European households by 2030 and, going forward, to create an environment based on the IoT (Internet of Things) in which consumers are protected from and can benefit from the volatility of the electricity market. The reason 1Komma5° is drawing attention is that it approaches carbon emissions arising not from the public sector but from homes and small- and medium-sized buildings. Household energy—heating, cooling, electricity use, and so on—accounts for a large share of total greenhouse-gas emissions. Taking the lack of a proper solution in this sector as the problem, they provide smart energy solutions that play an important role in reducing household emissions.
[Heartbeat, the IoT device that helps homeowners manage their energy ©1KOMMA5°]
At the center of the services 1Komma5° provides is a proprietary IoT system called "Heartbeat." Through this device they connect a solar system's electricity storage, wallbox, and heat pump, helping homeowners reduce their electricity costs. The core of this idea is to let the system optimize power consumption and thereby help consumers save energy.
[1Komma5° showroom ©1KOMMA5°]
The Achievements 1KOMMA5°'s Three Years Produced
On January 17, 2024, 1Komma5° announced its 2023 financial results. Its 2023 revenue more than doubled compared with 2022 to about 460 million euros, and profit also increased significantly, reaching about 50 million euros (about 71.8 billion won). It achieved these results in just over three years since launching its service, despite investing tens of millions of euros in developing its own products and software. Just as Tesla's electric vehicles forced the introduction of chargers into residential and public facilities, this is a remarkable achievement produced by a new perspective—household energy-control solutions—at a time when everyone was focused on factories and large-scale facilities. In addition, 1Komma5° announced a plan to grow 2024 revenue to 700–750 million euros and operating profit to more than 70 million euros.
by Editor L