Climate change might be the most serious existential threat that humanity has faced in decades. Some adverse effects like extreme weather, water scarcity, and crop failure are already being witnessed. What makes the problem even more challenging is that the most vulnerable areas are also some of the poorest in the world.

To combat this, many countries are coming together and investing significant resources to blunt the impact of air pollution, water pollution, and solid waste. However, the global energy demand is so immense that it would take decades to make an impactful change. This is the opportunity and the challenge that the start-ups on this list are tackling head on. By effectively turning energy into a tradable digital good, these companies are democratizing the industry. Even the businesses of energy generation are being decentralized by allowing small producers with rooftop solar units to access the energy market and sell their surplus. The race to stop climate change has already begun and these ICOs are at the forefront of the battle.

The best way to describe WePower is as a sort of crowdfunding platform for renewable energy projects.

Companies propose renewable energy projects and seek funding via plant token sales on the WePower platform.

Token holders then get a cut of the profits from the sale of this energy. These plants also donate a part of the proceeds to WePower token holders. These tokens are like energy credit which users can exchange for energy or sell to other users.

Node wants to disrupt the niche wireless power transmission industry. They have several prototype products like Alpha and Eon which have a target price ranging from $100 to $160.

They can be used to charge many types of devices and even multiple devices simultaneously using a selection of micro transmitters.

The company not only wants to make the technology mainstream, but also improve efficiency and responsiveness. They are also looking at applications beyond consumer use like healthcare, medical, industrial, drones etc.

Renewable sources of energy like wind, solar and tidal are just one part of the energy mix.

There are also various other greener alternatives – like Hydrogen based power generators.

And this is the segment that HydroCoin wants to target by setting the standards and leading the charge in hydrogen-based energy generation. Users holding Hydrocoin tokens will be able to purchase energy products from supported technologies as and when they become available.

The developers of Energi Token have taken a slightly different approach to renewable energy. Instead of focusing on the energy generation, they are focused on the consumption side of it.

Energi tokens will be used to reward consumers who contribute to a greener world by using mass transit, purchasing electric cars or buying energy-efficient appliances.

These tokens can then be used for specific purposes like paying your electricity bills. The company is already managing $140 million worth of energy in Europe.

Most of our readers would already be aware of the tremendous energy cost of operating a mining network for a currency like Bitcoin, which is estimated to exceed the total consumption of the country of Denmark.

Such levels of energy consumption are unsustainable and this is the gap that Envion wants to fulfill. Because of frequent fluctuations in solar energy production, there is often a vast oversupply of solar energy which remains unutilized.

Envion wants to tap into that energy with its “Mobile Mining Units” which will take advantage of these localized surpluses and reduce the overall mining footprint.

The premise behind Prosume Energy is to make the consumption of energy more responsible. They want to do this by creating a peer-to-peer platform where users can trade energy and thus profit from optimizing their own energy usage.

Consumers can also invest in energy generation and storage plants and become stakeholders in the products that they are consuming.

Then there are mechanisms in place to handle things like load-balancing and demand forecasting using blockchain technology.

This successful Australian start-up is bringing energy management down to the local community level. Users can trade excess power with neighbors and receive payments through the blockchain in real time.

Users can also select the renewable energy source of their choice. At the broader level, the platform allows for grid management, wholesale energy trading, and even carbon trading.

By bringing power generation to the same local level as power consumption, the team believes that they can achieve significant reductions in overall energy requirements and reduce the carbon footprint.

This UK based company seems to be thinking two steps ahead. They are using a blockchain integrated waste to energy generation plant which aims to solve not one, but two major environmental challenges.

This comes at an opportune time as countries like the UK are facing new problems with regards to their waste which was earlier just shipped overseas and forgot about.

For consumers, this means a greener energy source as well as energy cost reductions of between 15% to 20%.

Trading clean energy like a digital commodity on the blockchain – that's the premise behind SunContract. The company is developing applications which can tap into the energy infrastructure and digitize electricity meter data and transfer it to the blockchain.

From there, consumers and users can enter into smart contracts for clean and green energy.

The elimination of middlemen like energy retailers from the system will drive down costs and create more competitive markets where prices are based on real-time demand and supply and not energy monopolies.

RED is an already established energy company in the EU. What they want to do now is democratize the energy market by creating “cryptoenergy”.

Each token that is sold is treated like a battery, holding a specific charge. These tokens then accumulate more charge based on the production of energy generators. Users can then trade these tokens, generate a passive income off of them, or use them for their own household energy needs.

By eliminating traditional middlemen, cost savings of as much as 30% are envisaged for consumers while the compensation offered to energy producers will increase as well.