PowerLedger
Description
Tom Duncan:
"PowerLedger is blockchain industry solution that solves the challenge of supply and demand imbalances in power grids, whilst empowering individuals and organisation to share power with anyone in the grid network for an improved price point, and avoiding retailer price gouging. The PowerLedger platform makes optimal use of energy generation through effective matching of energy producers, consumers and prosumers. PowerLedger is currently conducting an ICO (not for USA citizens or people based in USA, also not for Chinese citizens or people in China) has already raised $4.8M USD at time of writing. ICO stands for Initial Coin Offering which is an alternative crowdfunding mechanism to help self fund the growth of early stage startups. Their POWR token (cryptocurrency) sale can be found here, purchased with either Bitcoin, Etherium or Litecoin." (https://medium.com/@tom.duncan7/blockchain-and-renewable-energy-is-completely-disrupting-society-as-we-know-it-with-p2p-energy-e1bdecfbbd46)
Discussion
Ecological Potential
Tom Duncan:
"PowerLedger is closing the energy waste loop for energy generators such as wind farms whom are required to dump energy into the ground during the night due to a lack of energy demand from consumers. It is also solving the wasted energy problem of suboptimal distribution that doesn’t have smart grid integration. Distributed power ledgers offer a software and decentralized technology solution to inefficient allocation of energy resource that can mimic what a hardware driven smart grid offers. There is a phenomenal amount of wasted energy in nations across the world, that if harnessed, stored and re-purposed could exponentially increase distribution and usage efficiency by potentially a factor of 4 or more. Energy production in 2014 globally was 547,53 petajoules, in USA 115,244 petajoules whilst Asia generated 265,722 petajoules of energy. Imagine not having to build any new coal, gas or nuclear power plants and instead focus on increasing efficiency of allocation, storage and transmission. Decentralized trading platforms that enable peer to peer transactions will reshape how energy assets are constructed, managed and operated. AI enhanced algorithms that enhance decision support systems will analyse bottlenecks in supply and demand and make recommendations for allocation of rooftop solar, wind farms, solar farms, home battery packs and integration of electric vehicle batteries into a decentralized smart grid powered by EcoChains. We might be able to save 100,000 petajoules of energy by 2025 (estimate), if PowerLedger was adopted by the large economies of the world and combined with widely adopted energy storage at homes and grid scale, all of which avoid the construction of new gas, coal and diesel generators. The amount of energy that would be saved or new generation capacity avoided might be equivalent to taking 201,332,500 homes in USA and Europe off the grid. That reduction in energy use through supply/demand matching efficiency, increased grid storage and avoiding new power generation assets in gas, coal and diesel energy is equivalent to 10 Gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions avoided. This might be achievable using distributed ledgers to efficiently transact energy packets and presents a significant case for scaling up PowerLedger and similar technologies. More research and modeling is required to understand the full positive impact on energy distribution efficiency when in combination with other measures. This brief article is a step in that direction of predicting possible scenarios in which distributed ledgers and renewable energy can assist with bringing down the global energy emissions." (https://medium.com/@tom.duncan7/blockchain-and-renewable-energy-is-completely-disrupting-society-as-we-know-it-with-p2p-energy-e1bdecfbbd46)
Solving the Blockchain's energy extractive nature with the Ecochain ?
Tom Duncan:
"Mining is historically extractive and the bitcoin blockchain is no different, if your not running the computer processors with renewable energy. More bitcoin miners are moving to renewable energy and taking advantage of the troughs in market demand. PowerLedger’s EcoChain solves this problem by incorporating its publicly traded renewable energy power packets into it’s operations and computation nodes that process transactions. Transaction processors who come onto the PowerLedger trading platform will be using the EcoChain version of blockchain, which is an evolutionary leap in the ecological sustainability of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Perhaps in time the EcoChain and PowerLedger traded tokens known as POWR tokens, will evolve to allow the collection of funds to invest in new renewable energy generation capacity. This function would rapidly enable the roll out of renewable energy infrastructure based on mapped demand and supply bottlenecks identified via PowerLedger trading patterns." (https://medium.com/@tom.duncan7/blockchain-and-renewable-energy-is-completely-disrupting-society-as-we-know-it-with-p2p-energy-e1bdecfbbd46)
Using Proof of Stake
Max Opray:
"He claims the energy-consumption issue has been averted by adopting a vastly more efficient form of blockchain than that which is used by bitcoin.
Whereas most blockchain relies on proof-of-work processes, Power Ledger employs something called proof-of-stake. The former consumes vast amounts of energy as it involves solving ever-more complicated mathematical equations, but proof-of-stake blockchains are based on pseudo-random chance.
“It uses the fraction of energy of conventional blockchain. Proof-of-stake is ideally suited for energy,” Martin says.
One of the leading critics of blockchain’s energy-consumption backs the approach. Michel Berne, the director of economics studies at Telecom management school in Paris, has been highly critical of the carbon footprint of blockchain, but he thinks, for energy markets at least, proof-of-stake could be a solution.
“Yes, I believe that proof-of-stake blockchain applications can validly compete with other non-blockchain based solutions in energy trading,” he says.
“Peer-to-peer energy trading is nascent, notoriously difficult to manage and blockchain solutions might be useful.”
He questions whether proof-of-stake could completely phase out proof-of-work blockchain in other sectors however, as he is unconvinced it offers the same level of security that is the point of blockchain in the first place." (https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/13/could-a-blockchain-based-electricity-network-change-the-energy-market)