Remaining with the energy industry, another exciting upcoming initiative that uses blockchain as a medium for the betterment of the electricity industry is sun exchange. Throughout this article, we shall explore how sun exchange functions and how it leverages blockchain to creatively attempt to fill the void within the energy industry.

Why Sun Exchange?

In simple but accurate terms, Sun Exchange consists of a crowdfunding ecosystem that enables practically anyone to contribute into building power plants in African remote yet sun blazed areas while gaining revenue from it.

To further break this into detail, we must go back to the genesis that gave birth to the need of having the likes of the sun exchange come to be. In the global context, the world is exponentially running out fossil fuels, and out of a life-sustaining climate due to the excessive excrements of industry and the like. In addition, lack of access to funds (the reason for which is frustratingly illogical considering the situation mentioned above. However, If one was to start thinking about conspiracy theories or under-the-table lobbying, a plausible answer might not that hard to find) make it increasingly hard for renewable energy technologies (some of which are as old as 500 years such as Leonardo’s Da Vinci solar energy invention back in the 1500s) to take over as the mainstream source of energy in the 21st century. Moreover, how the global economy is hanging by the very thin thread that is the dependence on oligopolies and lobbying groups that have clustered and centralized the energy market in general and electricity in particular is quite frankly terrifying in the regards that it’s neither sustainable as the non-renewable resources are bound to dissipate (as previously mentioned) nor is it ethical considering that those conglomerates are under little to no obligation to do what’s morally right instead of what’s profitable (and the half-hearted policies and efforts for most of them are the best proof). Add that to the hundreds of millions still unable to access electricity in the various parts of the world (especially Africa) and we have ourselves an ordeal that demands instant and unconventional intervention. And that’s where Sun Exchange came into the picture.

What is Sun Exchange?

How Sun Exchange came to be as successful as it is now was by leveraging two of the most influential features of the modern day internet; community and blockchain. The first was through the crowdfunding culture that has gained massive popularity and influence in the past 10 years. The second being blockchain, something we should all be familiar with by now. And if you’re not, then you’ve come to the right place. To put that into the bigger picture, the Sun Exchange’s model is as follows: their team of experts conducts research to find the optimal location. After confirming their next project, they then release the crowdfunding for the project onto their platform, then contributors anywhere can contribute either by or fiat currency or digital currency which is then exchanged for fiat. Once the project is complete before the deadline, the Sun Exchange carries on with the project whilst keeping the highest standards of installation and legal procedures. Until now, the sun exchange would seem more like a charity or a non-profit than a business. But a key feature of the sun exchange allows the contributors to gain continuous earnings from the revenues of the solar plant they paid for. When then plant is installed and operational, its consumers pay a regular agreed upon fee-based on a 20-year long leasing rent contract just like they would pay their normal electricity bill. That money would be then sent into a third-party escrow account which is associated with a software engine that has constant communications with the plant to supervise flow of payments versus the flow of supply (naturally, the engine has the ability to flag any case of loss of earnings and report it to the 3rd party insurance) then the returns collected in the escrow account would be divided ( in digital currency) among the contributors based on the equivalent amount in cryptocurrency of their initial investment in the time of the crowdfunding ( considering the high volatility of the crypto market). In addition to the appealing simplicity of the Sun Exchange model, comes also the transparency and fairness of it. As previously mentioned, the tracking of the size of investment in equivalence with digital currency comes in real-time, making it fair and standardized for all contributors, as well as making sure not too much or too little funds are collected. In case of oversizing in funds or failure of the campaign, the last and all investors respectively get all investments back in full. In the same spirit of transparency, any contributor can calculate exactly the equivalent of his/her investment in solar assets of the particular campaign and estimate of their earnings basing on that. After a project is operational, any investor can access real-time data on their earnings and the overall performance of the project. Out of the realization that there is a crypto/fiat gap that is to be filled if they are to reach out to their maximum potential and to make matters even easier, the Sun exchange are constantly securing new exchange partners that will enable practically anyone with a bank account to be a part of the process and not just digital wallet owners.

All that sounds great and dandy, and to a large extent, it is. However, one big challenge looms the South Africa-based company, which is default losses. To counter that, the Solar Project Insurance Fund or SPIF was conceived power by their token SUNEX. The sale for this token that started on April 22nd has and continues for the following 8 months the aim of collecting of funds to conduct various measures such as Business development, taxes, and sales proceeds. But the most important reason for the ICO ( apart from the part going to their members’ rewards programme) was to create a pool of Sovereign U.S Treasury Bills (also known as US Dollars) that can protect the company and its investors from the dangers of defaulting customers of the plants as well as preventing the company from insolvency. That includes relocating the plant altogether to a more favorable location. The fundraising goal for their ICO is 25 Million USD whereas their hard cap is an ambitious 88 million USD that’s supposed to be gained from the total token volume of 166,666,667. It is worth noting that a 100 million out of the total token volume ( representing 37.5%) is reserved for their members rewards programme, whereas 12.5 % is for management team & staff and the remaining 50% will be available to the regular token holders.

Who is Sun Exchange?

Surely, one must be wondering by now who are the people behind sun exchange. Their team is made out of 12 individuals starting with the CEO Abraham Cambridge who, being a serial entrepreneur, has gathered more than 10 years worth of experience in the energy industry. Along with him his co-founder and CFO Larry Temlock who has a solid 25 years of experience in the Financial world under him ranging from Debt Capital markets, securitization, leveraged finance and other fancy terms. Lisa Lyhne is the COO and Morwesi Ramonyai is the CCO.

Conclusion

The mere simplicity of the sun exchange business model makes one wonder how come something so easy wasn’t around earlier before. Although it is not as hands-on in its approach as some other electricity-decentralizing ventures. But looking at their 5 complete projects all around South Africa and the 6th project that’s on an ongoing crowdselling, I’d say that choice might as well be a blessing in disguise.