Power Ledger (POWR) is pretty well known energy focused project, which is what I'm writing on today. You should see my other guides as well - check out Ren (REN), Komodo (KMD) and Waves (WAVES).

In the world of cryptocurrencies, it’s not easy to find a unique project that is not trying to be an all-in-one solution for everything. In other words, it’s not easy to find something that does not try to be a “newer and faster” Ethereum. Finding a project that tries to tap into the blockchain world and yet still utilizes it for some niche market is refreshing. And fortunately, Power Ledger is one of them.

Yes, Power Ledger is the blockchain-based platform that tries to enable local areas to distribute solar power without involving any type of middleman. The concept is to have a world without dependency on big companies for all energy that you actually need. Power Ledger utilizes decentralized applications in order to make that kind of market become a reality.

So, how does Power Ledger truly work? Let’s find out together!

History of Power Ledger

Power Ledger is trying to utilize the power of the blockchain to solve real problems in the real world. Around four years ago (2015), a report by Deutsche Bank stated that 30 countries worldwide had achieved grid parity. For your information, grid parity is the condition where the price of solar-generated electricity was lower (or at least the same) with the cost of local retail electricity.

Power Ledger sees this opportunity, and it tries to mix the concept of the blockchain and solar power development. The result is a much cleaner and cheaper energy solution compared to traditional energy markets.

Power Ledger project itself was first established in 2016. Based in Australia, the project was able to trial first Australia’s energy trading blockchain network. Not long after that, Power Ledger developed its first non-Australia deployment by having a peer-to-peer energy trading platform in New Zealand. The impressive thing is that this platform was done entirely based on the blockchain.

In Q2 2017, Power Ledger successfully created a commercial energy management system that allows the distribution of locally generated renewable energy to people in multi-unit departments. Power Ledger has included pay for usage of solar-powered electric vehicle charging units in Australia.

Not only that, but Power Ledger also has expanded its project to Bangkok (Thailand) thanks to the cooperation with BCPG.

The project itself was funded through an initial coin offering (ICO) in October 2017 where it successfully collected $13,240,000 USD. There are three co-founders of this project. They are Dr. Jemma Green, David Martin, and John Bullich.

The executive chairman is Dr. Jemma Green, who used to work for J.P. Morgan in London (United Kingdom). Dr. Jemma Green completed her PhD in electricity market disruption, and she was a research fellow at Curtin University. She also received 2018’s EY Fintech Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Meanwhile, the other co-founder is David Martin. In the Power Ledger core team, he acts as a Director. With almost twenty years of experience in the electricity industry, he has tons of knowledge when it comes to electricity business. He has six years of experience as a senior consultant to industry players who specialize in the regulation of distribution networks, consumer engagement, and renewable technology business development.

The third and last co-founder is John Bulich. He is also the Technical Director in the Power Ledger core team. Basically, John is responsible for the application design, system, and conceptual of the Power Ledger. He is also the leader of the technical development team.

His background involves his experience with Ledger Assets, which was the first blockchain-based product proving the provenance of artifacts in the world.

One important thing about the core team of Power Ledger is that they were named as the winner in Sir Richard Branson’s Extreme Tech Challenge on Necker Island. Such accomplishment is a testament to Power Ledger’s technology and the core team’s ability to deliver their promises.

Dr. Jemma Green with Sir Richard Branson - image source

From the background of the co-founders, we can see that Power Ledger has capabilities to achieve the “marriage” between blockchain technology and the electricity market.

How Power Ledger Works

image source

The Power Ledger ecosystem creates peer-to-peer energy transactions by storing all information of participants in real-time. Energy generation and usage are all transacted at predetermined rates.

The ecosystem of Power Ledger uses the dual-token model system. The first one is called Power Ledger Token (POWR), and the second one is called Sparkz. Power Ledger also utilizes two different blockchain platforms. The public one is Ethereum, and the private one is called Ecochain.

You might be confused why Power Ledger needs to use two different tokens when they can just utilize POWR for everything. Let me explain the differences between the two. POWR token is used to give permission to Power Ledger users and application hosts to access the ecosystem. Application hosts, for example, need to have a certain number of POWR tokens before they can access the platform for their own applications.

POWR itself is being traded through an escrow system via an Ethereum Smart Bond exchange for the secondary token, Sparkz.

When the application host put its POWR tokens in the escrow, the same host won’t be able to transact on Power Ledger platform until it gets more POWR tokens. When the same application host put his Sparkz token on the platform, the Ethereum Smart Bond will be able to be unlocked. When it happens, the POWR tokens that were escrowed can be returned to the host.

And by the way, you can get Sparkz token by using your fiat currencies. The application host will have to use Sparkz tokens to onboard its customers. In other words, the customers pay with Sparkz, and in return, they get the electricity that they need.

Sparkz can be used and destroyed as soon as they are redeemed. Sparkz is (more or less) a stablecoin because the price is linked to the fiat currency as well as the cost of power. In Australia, one Sparkz token is the same with one AUD (Australian Dollar).

To achieve its vision, Power Ledger has five running products. They are called C6 and C6+, Power Port, uGrid, xGrid, and Asset Germination. xGrid, for example, is the product where people can trade energy on the existing electrical grid. uGrid, on the other hand, will allow its users to trade energy through an existing microgrid or embedded network.

The Future Of Power Ledger

The concept of Power Ledger sounds great, because it tries to democratize the energy market, and it is targeting the right niche by utilizing public blockchain. However, the complexities of this project might make it hard to compete with newer competitors in the same niche when they start to arise.

Problem with Power Ledger is their questionable decision-making policies. For example, they use a dual-token model with the second token (Sparkz) is basically a stablecoin. They could have used a much better name that mimics the fiat currency, but they used an edgy teenager name instead (Sparkz).

They could also make their products to be much more simplified instead of dividing them into 5-6 different products despite the fact that some of them are very “close” one to another.

In other words, Power Ledger could have simplified a lot of different things if they want it, and these policies might actually backfire in the future. Imagine when a tech company is trying to “diversify” into 100 different branch products even though they all have quite similar functions, usually, it becomes a recipe for disaster.

That being said, the competition is still very “young” for Power Ledger. There are not many public blockchain projects that try to tap into the same niche. If they can sort everything out, they might actually get ahead on top of everybody else.

Competition

Talking about competition, there aren’t many worthy opponents of Power Ledger. Their biggest challengers are Lo3 Energy, WePower, and Power2Peer. The thing is, both Lo3 Energy and Power2Peer are not really visible due to their lack of native crypto tokens.

On the other hand, WePower is a dying project, with a market cap less than $4 million, despite the fact that they got funded for $40 million in their initial coin offering (ICO) session back in 2018.

This is why I wrote that Power Ledger still has a lot of time to sort everything out because they seem to be ahead of everybody in the same niche.

POWR In The Crypto Market

At the time this post was written, one POWR was worth $0.036233 USD. POWR had a market cap of $15,483.379 USD with $391,721 daily (24h) trading volume. You can find POWR on LAToken, Binance, Bilaxy, Bithumb, Upbit, Huobi, DigiFinex, Kucoin, HitBTC, and some other exchanges.

However, outside LAToken, there doesn’t seem to be any liquidity at all for any trading pair involving POWR.

While POWR is still ahead of its competitors in the same niche but POWR trading volume is slightly worrying. Apparently, most crypto traders have “moved on” from the hype and are more enthusiastic in trading other crypto tokens.

Conclusion

POWR is a good crypto token with great technology behind it. The idea to tap into the energy market utilizing blockchain technology was actually quite brilliant. And the fact that most of Power Ledger’s competitors are still lagging behind them, it gives them a big advantage to control the market.

However, the demand for this type of niche is still relatively unknown. Nobody knows when will it get big (if ever). POWR remains one of the dark horses in the top 200 cryptocurrencies by market cap, but we don’t know yet if the industry that Power Ledger is in will ever take off.