SolarCoin
= "an alternative currency backed by solar electricity production, which is designed to incentivize the production of 97,500 TWh of global solar generation over the next 40 years". [1]
URL = http://wiki.solarcoin.org/index.php?title=Lower_Carbon_currency
“SolarCoin is believed to be 50 times more energy efficient than Bitcoin by its design rapid mining reward decay rate.”
Description
0.
"SolarCoin is an “altcoin” in crypto parlance—just one of the many cryptocurrencies that compete for the attention of the market. It’s tiny relative to bitcoin: All the SolarCoin in circulation is worth about $2 million, compared to the $11.8 billion that all the bitcoin in the world is worth.
Like many altcoins, and like bitcoin itself, SolarCoin is an open-source project. It’s administered by a volunteer group called the SolarCoin Foundation. The project’s goal is to motivate people to generate solar energy by rewarding them with SolarCoins, a spin on how bitcoin incentivizes miners to commit processing power to the network by rewarding them with bitcoins for each block of transactions mined. Each SolarCoin is worth however much the market decides it’s worth, and there are several exchanges that allow coins to be traded.
One megawatt hour of energy generated by solar panels can be redeemed for one SolarCoin. These SolarCoins can in turn be traded on crypto-markets for other liquid digital currencies like bitcoin (including its rival ether) or US dollars.
SolarCoins aren’t worth very much right now. Each coin trades for a fraction of a bitcoin, translating to just $0.60 a coin in dollar terms. One bitcoin currently trades for upwards of $730. So why would anyone bother with this scheme? The answer, as with many things blockchain, lies in network effects."
1. Nick Gogerty:
"SolarCoin is a digital currency rewarding solar energy producers. Launched in January 2014 and inspired from BitCoin and BlockChain Tech whereby transactions are recorded and validated by a peer to peer network of computers, SolarCoin presents the additional advantage of being a tangible virtual currency: in fact, by coupling each MWh of solar electricity produced by a photovoltaic system to the production of a SolarCoin, the virtual world joins our physical world. Put another way, one can also understand that SolarCoin works as Solar-Miles: any solar owner receives SolarCoins for electricity that his photovoltaic installation generates… and it’s free!
What is the use of SolarCoin? In itself, a currency has a value assigned to it by a community of users or a social group, as a means of payment and value circulation. Existing currencies (such as the EUR, USD…) present the risk of one day being over-issued, therefore creating inflation: it is the case when a country is in crisis and its Government issues too much Debt. In contrast, SolarCoin has a social utility for its community: by rewarding the owner of a solar photovoltaic system, SolarCoin acts as an incentive, stimulating the implementation of solar power worldwide. The idea of creating a renewable energy-based digital currency is derived from an academic paper Deko: Proposal for a currency Based on Electricity which lead to the publication The Nature of Value, available from Colombia University Press. SolarCoin is already present in 17 countries and is intended to be circulated worldwide: any owner of a solar photovoltaic installation may apply and claim his SolarCoins for free. To do so, the solar owner simply registers his solar installation online with data proving the existence and operation of his solar installation, using the form available on the solarcoin.org website. The grant mechanism for delivering SolarCoins is based on a simple formula: 1 SolarCoin (§ SLR) per MWh of solar electricity generated, regardless of where in the world the energy is produced. In the US, this means that a residential solar installation with a peak-power of 3kWp will receive annually nearly § 4SLR. SolarCoins are granted by the SolarCoin Foundation to the Wallet Address of the solar owner. Thereafter, every 6 months, SolarCoins will be sent to the solar owner, taking into account the electricity produced, and as long as the solar installation will be connected to the Grid. For the first online registration, the grant is also retroactive to the interconnection date to the Grid, or January 2010, whichever comes first. SolarCoin therefore acts as an incentive for producing solar energy.
Currently, already more than 70,000 SolarCoins have been granted to owners of a solar photovoltaic system or CSP (concentrated solar power). This is a tiny fraction of what is to be granted, given the 180GWp of solar panels already installed worldwide at the end of 2014. This figure represents indeed 180million SLR to be potentially granted. By 2030, the International Energy Agency estimates that the installed capacity should rise to 900GWp.
So what if people don’t own a photovoltaic installation? One can then invest in SolarCoins through a trading platform for exchanging SolarCoins to BitCoins or EUR and USD. Behind the scenes, developers are already setting up an online exchange platform to convert directly EUR to SLR and a Smartphone app for easy-access to mobile Wallets.
The digital currency is managed by the SolarCoin Foundation which is composed of renewable energy specialists as well as brilliant economists. The Foundation believes that solar energy could cover a significant part of our world’s energy needs. 98.5 Billion SolarCoins were created and set aside to reward solar energy producers. Nick Gogerty, spokesman of the Solarcoin Foundation states that when the currency is worth 20–30 dollars per Coin, it will indeed provide an effective incentive for people to purchase solar panels and possibly act as a substitute to feed-in tariffs currently in place (FIT, netmeetering…) and encourage more people to participate in renewable energies." (https://medium.com/dark-mountain/what-is-solarcoin-7d01b9bdad43)
2. Derek Markham:
"It seems appropriate that a new method of earning, spending, and trading value or assets, such as cryptocurrency enables, can be tied to a relatively new method of generating energy. And that’s the idea behind SolarCoin, an alternative currency backed by solar electricity production, which is designed to incentivize the production of 97,500 TWh of global solar generation over the next 40 years.
“SolarCoin is an alternative digital currency. SolarCoin is backed by two forms of proof of work. One is the traditional cryptographic proof of work associated with digital currency.
The other proof of work is a Solar Renewable Energy Certificate (SREC) that has been generated and 3rd party verified. SolarCoin is equitably distributed using both of these proofs of work as a means to reward renewable energy production.”
Each SolarCoin represents the generation of 1MWh of solar electricity, and the cryptocurrency can be used to pay for goods or services from individuals and businesses that accept it. SolarCoin, which is managed by the Open Currency Association (OCA) can be “earned” by solar power producers, can be mined (such as other cryptocurrencies are), or bought through an alternative currency exchange.
The goal of SolarCoin is to incentivize the global production of solar energy, which contrasts with some other alternative currencies, such as Bitcoin, which seeks a decentralized currency. The maximum issuance of SolarCoin is said to be about 98.1 billion (compare to Bitcoin’s maximum issuance of 21 million).
The basis for this crypocurrency is a 2011 paper co-authored by Nick Gogerty, of Thoughtful Capital Group, titled “DeKo: An Electricity-Backed Currency Proposal“." (http://ecopreneurist.com/2014/01/29/cryptocurrency-backed-solar-energy/)
Discussion
SolarCoin is 50 times more energy efficient than Bitcoin
"Many have critiqued Bitcoin and crypto currencies as wasting energy and therefore damaging to the environment. In order to assess the impact of Bitcoin and SolarCoin a model of their energy & resource consumption and impact is suggested below. The following approach was used to build the model.
The blockchain reward in $'s can be used to measure the maximum rational amount an individual or group would spend to receive the reward.
The resources used to "mine" crypto currencies are the computing power used to calculate hashes. Cryptographic hash calculations use electricity and physical computer chips.
In order to simplify the analysis, we will assume the cost of the physical computer chips involves energy for all aspects of production.
As another simplifying assumption all energy will be considered electrically generated using a single Fossil Fuel Source at an average cost. Transaction rewards which will vary in the future are assumed to be marginally economically beneficial to a degree which means their resource intensity are "justified" as a means of payment. These transactions costs are assumed to compete effectively if not more efficiently than standard payment networks used today such as (VISA/MasterCard/CHIPs/SWIFT) and others.
Expansion of the model's assumptions and competing models for Carbon intensity of CryptoCurrencies are welcomed.
SolarCoin is believed to be 50 times more energy efficient than Bitcoin by its design rapid mining reward decay rate." (http://wiki.solarcoin.org/index.php?title=Lower_Carbon_currency)