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Blockchain Fever in the RE landscape

11/8/2017

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Blockchain fever appears to have broken out among social enterprise-oriented solar energy entrepreneurs and start-ups. At least three potentially seminal events recently took place in less than one week in the nascent solar/renewable energy blockchain platform space.

Built by the developers of SolarCoin, billed as the world’s first renewable energy currency, Greeneum on Oct. 19 announced the upcoming launch of the Greeneum Network, a peer-to-peer, blockchain-based renewable energy trading platform that connects energy producers, consumers utilities, grid operators and energy traders. One day later, on Oct. 20, South Africa’s Sun Exchange announced it had raised $1.6 million from an international group of venture capital investors to continue development of what’s said to be the world’s first direct, peer-to-peer solar energy sharing platform. Akin to Airbnb or Uber, Solar Exchange is an app that serves as the user interface and gateway to an underlying blockchain-centered platform that enables community members to purchase or lease solar energy assets for as little as $10, according to a news release.

Four days after that, Manhattan Beach, California-based ImpactPPA launched a blockchain-based, peer-to-peer (P2P) solar energy project finance platform that enables community members to pitch and fund solar and renewable energy projects worldwide. ImpactPPA employs two forms of digital tokens – MPAQ tokens that establish a base of value for community members to fund projects worldwide, and NRG tokens, which in effect serve as a global form of currency that enable consumers to purchase clean, emissions-free energy.

Sun Exchange can boast of signing up 4,000 registered users – 300 of whom have leased producing photovotaic (PV) cells and generation capacity via the platform. “We operate on a first come, first served basis with only limited supply of cells for each project,” founder and CEO Abraham Cambridge told Solar Magazine. “We could have more active leases in place, but our first four solar projects sold out faster than expected and now we need to keep up with the demand.”

Sun Exchange is open to solar energy project solicitations proposals from just about all comers – individuals, communities, schools, commercial enterprises or other forms of group organizations. Proposals do need to be fully conceived, fully costed and include an assessment of energy needs.

Sun Exchange engineers then evaluate proposals and respond with a lease equipment offer, Cambridge explained. Generally speaking, Sun Exchange solar leases extend out over 20 years or more and guarantee a cost lower than alternatives suggested by project solicitors, he continued.

If we cannot beat their energy costs, we will decline the project, but the great thing about solar in places like South Africa is that all solar projects are viable provided there is a high level of self-consumption from the system.

On the flip side, those with solar PV cells to offer simply need to sign up and join Sun Exchange, then search for a project where they would like to have their solar PV cells installed. “Each project is different and we recommend that our members read the supporting materials for each project carefully to understand the risks and information about the operations that their energy is powering. This is a democratic approach to solar energy finance,” Cambridge elaborated.

Solar panels are sold by the single solar cell on the Sun Exchange platform, thereby reducing the cost of solar plant ownership to below $10, according to the company. Management touts that the company’s direct, peer-to-peer solar energy sharing platform and network “democratizes the green economy by giving retail customers around the world the chance to lease solar cells bought on their platform to medium to large solar installations in emerging markets.”
“Solar power is the most promising technology to achieve a zero-carbon future. It’s the fastest growing source of energy, but billions of people don’t own their own roof or have the capital to get it. By breaking down solar panel ownership to a single cell we reduce the cost of going solar by two orders of magnitude and we’re utilizing empty roof space in some of the sunniest cities on the planet, such as Dubai and Johannesburg,” Cambridge stated in the news release.

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15 Firms Leading the Way on Energy Blockchain

10/28/2017

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This week a South African blockchain startup called Sun Exchange raised $1.6 million in seed funding to launch a peer-to-peer solar energy trading platform. It is hardly unique, though.

Recent weeks have seen new blockchain-based energy hopefuls cropping up like mushrooms after the rain. Here are 15 of the top names making headlines.

Conjoule

Conjoule offers a blockchain platform designed to support peer-to-peer trading of energy among rooftop PV owners and interested public-sector or corporate buyers. The company was hatched in Innogy’s Innovation Hub in 2015 and pulled in $5.3 million in funding from Tokyo Electric Power Company and others in July. Conjoule has been running a pilot in Germany for the past year.

Drift

Seattle-based Drift is leveraging distributed ledger technology, machine learning and high-frequency trading to create a differentiated competitive retail energy provider. It raised $2.1 million in May and is currently operating in New York City.

Greeneum

Greeneum, developed by the team behind the first renewable energy currency, SolarCoin (see below), this month revealed it is running test nets and pilots for its peer-to-peer energy trading platform “in Europe, Cyprus, Israel, Africa and the U.S.” It expects to have a viable product platform out by mid-2018.

Grid+

In one of the most hotly hyped launches in the energy blockchain world, Grid+ last month raised $40 million through its token sale, which will fund the development and launch of its blockchain-based competitive retail provider in Texas. The hype was partly a result of Grid+’s origins: It was created by top New York blockchain shop ConsenSys.

Grid Singularity

Grid Singularity is an Austrian startup developing a blockchain purpose-built for the energy industry, backed by a team of experienced energy market professionals and leading blockchain and smart contract developers, according to its website (see also: Energy Web Foundation).

Electron

U.K. startup Electron began with a blockchain-based solution to help customers in the U.K. switch energy suppliers, but has since been communicating a vision of leveraging its platform to support broader energy trading and grid-balancing solutions. Last month, with help from Siemens and National Grid, it won U.K. government support to scale up its platform.

Energy Web Foundation

Established in February by Grid Singularity and the Rocky Mountain Institute, Energy Web Foundation is not so much a startup as an alliance body aimed at introducing an open-source blockchain designed for the electricity market, identifying use cases and helping build an ecosystem of participants. Big-name energy firms pumped $2.5 million into the foundation in May. 

ImpactPPA

While most energy-based blockchain players offer a token for trading, Manhattan Beach, California-based ImpactPPA has two: one to fund projects and one to consume energy. The company is targeting the estimated 16 percent of the world population that lacks a reliable source of energy.

LO3 Energy

As well as backing Electron in the U.K., Siemens last year announced a tie-up with New York peer-to-peer blockchain developer LO3 Energy. The promising startup this month pulled in an unspecified amount of funding from Braemar Energy Ventures and Centrica Innovations.

MyBit

MyBit is designed to help crowdfund solar panels by distributing the ownership of each system across several owners. The company raised the equivalent of around $2.7 million in a token sale in August.

Power Ledger

Australia’s star energy blockchain player, Power Ledger, had pulled in more than $24 million from around 15,000 supporters by the time it completed a token generation event earlier this month. The company is rolling out pilot projects for its blockchain platform, built to support a broad range of energy market applications, in Australia and New Zealand.

SolarCoin

SolarCoin was launched in 2014 as a rewards program for solar electricity generation, with one of its coins equaling a megawatt-hour of production. The scheme is set to reward 97,500 terawatt-hours of generation over 40 years, but for now its value remains low.

Sun Exchange

Sun Exchange’s motto is “solar-powered money.” Founded by U.K. utility-scale solar pioneer Abraham Cambridge, the company aims to let supporters around the world crowdfund PV down to the level of an individual solar cell and lease them to schools and businesses in Africa. Sun Exchange recently raised $1.6 million in seed funding.

Veridium Labs

Veridium is a financial technology firm aiming to create a new asset class called “EcoSmart Commodities.” “Veridium will provide a new vehicle for corporations to embed environmental replacements into the cost of their products,” co-founder Todd Lemons told GTM.

WePower

WePower is developing an Ethereum-based platform to fund renewable energy projects through the sale and trading of the “tokenized” energy produced by those systems. The company is looking to raise $30 million from an ICO next month.

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