It all started....

...about a week ago. I was perusing a list of ERC20 tokens, looking for who-knows-what and I ran across SunContract. The name immediately piqued my interest. “What could this be?”, I thought. So I immediately set out to do some research and what I found, really opened my eyes to the possibility of blockchain technology.

About SunContract

SunContract is a Slovenia based project that hopes to disrupt the energy market by using smart contracts and their ERC20 token to connect green energy producers with energy buyers. The blockchain will serve as an intermediary in this process, allowing users to pay for their energy needs by exchanging the SunContract token. Homeowners will be able to choose who they want to buy their power from – as well as indicate and adjust power needs to reduce or increase spending.

Explanation video from SunContrac

The ICO for SunContract launched in 2017 and allowed users to purchase tokens for Ethereum at a rate of 11,600 – 10,000 tokens per 1ETH. Following the distribution of the tokens, the company began to allow energy trading in Q1 of 2018. As adoption grew, the company pushed forward with their mobile and web app. Throughout 2018 and into 2019 as adoption grew in their native Slovenia the company looked to expand into new markets. Currently they are working with Italian and Pilipino companies to expand their technology. According to the company’s whitepaper, they hope to eventually penetrate the Chinese market.

Competition Already?

A potential rival for SunContract comes from Lithuania. WePower – another blockchain/token startup hopes to disrupt the PPA or "Power Purchase Agreement" marketplace. Power Purchase Agreements are contracts sold to buyers of energy from producers of energy. They allow buyers to secure price and energy amounts for fixed periods of time. In turn they allow producers to raise upfront capital for selling contracts to bidders on the marketplace. According to WePower’s website, their largest market currently resides in Spain – far away from Slovenia but near enough, that, as the platform expands, we may get to see some interesting competition for users.

WePower Introduction Video

WePower is building a token and energy buying system on a B2B, or business to business basis. According to their whitepaper, they want to enable business to generate their own tokens through the WePower platform to use in selling their PPAs to customers. Those contract holders will be able to hold and sell the tokens on that platform as a sort of "stake" in the producers.

While it may not be in direct competition yet with SunContract, the possibility that WePower users want to sell their energy tokens to consumers may cause marketplace competition as the technology and platforms grow. Perhaps we'll see an open energy token marketplace - seperate from current coin and token marketplaces!

The Future

The difference between the two resides, of course, in the P2P model of SunContract, and the B2B model of WePower. The capitalist in me can’t wait to see this play out. Will independent energy producers continue to sell to each other from the SunContract pool? Or, should markets for both projects intersect, will we see a shift away from P2P as businesses using the WeContract platform look to sell their own energy tokens to their markets? Will cross platform functionality grow? Can independent producers sell to buisnesses on WePower and private individuals on SunContract?

I know for sure I’ll be watching both these companies and their bright futures.

-KC

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All info taken from suncontract.org and wepower.network