Electrify.Asia aims to enhance the existing company of ELECTRIFY by allowing consumers to buy their energy directly from peers or electricity retailers using the blockchain and smart contracts. This will be possible via the ELECTRIFY Ecosystem, which will be available via both a mobile and web application.

ELECTRIFY was the very first electricity retail marketplace in Southeast Asia to address the requirements for security and transparency in energy consumption. So far, ELECTRIFY has a gross merchandise volume of more than SGD$5 million. Since March 2017, the company has allowed for transactions of over 30 GWh of electricity with both industrial and commercial customers.

What Problems Does Electrify.Asia Hope to Address?

In the white paper, the team behind Electrify.Asia outlines the need for a solution like this. The paper points out that 60 percent of the population of the world is in Asia, with nearly half of that figure living in cities and being connected to the central power grids. It points to the recent liberalization of power grids within specific countries, including Japan in 2016 and parts of China. As more countries liberalize the grids, consumers get more options for energy consumption. Unfortunately, the grids remain centralized and managed by corporations, even in areas with liberalized grids. Combined with the quickly growing demand for renewable energy resources, this leads to a need for change.

ELECTRIFY should be able to overcome the problems associated with centralization and corporatization, as well as a lack of access to renewable energy sources via its decentralized nature.

What Is the Goal Behind Electrify.Asia?

With Electrify.Asia, ELECTRIFY will develop a completely decentralized marketplace for energy that runs using the blockchain. It will be an improvement over the current marketplace within Singapore and be known as MARKETPLACE 2.0. This new marketplace will let anyone source energy from either commercial energy suppliers or from private producers. All this will be done via SYNERGY, ELECTRIFY’s peer-to-peer trading platform.

How Is the ELECTRIFY Ecosystem Different from the Current Energy Marketplace?

To begin with, the current energy marketplace from ELECTRIFY is only available via the web application, while the new Ecosystem will also allow for a mobile application. The current business for ELECTRIFY is relatively straightforward, providing retail electricity contracts. The ELECTRIFY Ecosystem, however, has multiple components. MARKETPLACE 2.0 provides retail electricity smart contracts (instead of the regular retail electricity contracts in the current system) as well as SYNERGY, the peer-to-peer energy trading platform. Both the smart contracts and SYNERGY are supported by PowerPod and E-Wallet.

What Are the Core Components of the ELECTRIFY Ecosystem?

One of the major components of the ELECTRIFY Ecosystem is Marketplace 2.0. This mobile and web platform is the part of the Ecosystem that lets consumers buy their energy from peers or electricity retailers, utilizing smart contracts and the blockchain.

SYNERGY is the part of ELECTRIFY that allows consumers to buy their power right from the small-scale producers. Examples would be residential wind turbines or rooftop solar. By including SYNERGY, Electrify.Asia gets rid of the go-betweens to reduce the energy costs that are passed on to consumers.

The e-wallet will facilitate payments using the smart contracts. Essentially, this part of the ELECTRIFY Ecosystem lets consumers pay for energy usage with ease. Finally, PowerPod is an internet of things smart device that measures and executes the peer-to-peer trades using SYNERGY smart contracts. This device logs the energy produced, recording the information on the blockchain. Essentially, it makes it possible to accurately audit and track the output from any energy-producing unit, including small-scale solar panels.

What Is the ELEC Token, and How Is It Used?

The ELEC token is one of the key components of the ELECTRIFY Ecosystem. Energy retailers and producers use ELEC as a deposit for their listings and to gain access to the Ecosystem. Energy providers also pay ELECTRIFY’s transaction fees using ELEC tokens. These tokens are also used as loyalty rewards for the consumers. The actual payments from customers to electricity retailers remain in fiat, as do the payments via the SYNERGY peer-to-peer platform.

Out of a total token supply of 750 million ELEC, 375 million (50 percent) were available during the ICO. 18.4 percent goes to the team and future team members, with a vesting of 50 percent at six-month intervals. 9 percent goes to partners and advisors, and 4.1 percent goes to the airdrop for the community. The final 18.5 percent goes toward community development and the treasury, subdivided into 11.2 percent for the reserve, 1.2 percent for a contribution to researching blockchain public scaling development, and 6.1 percent to community development for the small-scale energy producers and consumers.

ELEC Token Sale

The token sale for ELEC has already been completed, taking place from Feb. 23 to March 2. The hard cap for the sale was 30 million USD, and only ETH was accepted. The rate during the sale was 1 ELEC for $0.08 USD.

The progress to the hard cap determined which projects would be delivered and which countries would receive them. Reaching 60 percent of the goal would result in the Marketplace 2.0, SYNERGY, and e-wallet for Singapore. Reaching 80 percent added on PowerPod and expansion to Japan. Reaching the full goal resulted in expansion to Australia and the Philippines. Although information regarding token sale figures is not obvious on the Electrify.Asia website, it does refer to the crowdsale as a “success,” indicating the full hard cap was likely reached.

Out of the funds raised, 52 percent goes toward development, technology, and research. An additional 19 percent goes to staffing, 10 percent to operations, 10 percent to business development as well as partnerships, and the final 9 percent to accounting and legal.

Conclusion

For those in Asia, Electrify.Asia will be an extremely useful project. Although the core components are not yet developed, the fact that the project comes from a reputable company with experience, ELECTRIFY, increases its potential for success. When complete, Electrify.Asia has the potential to increase transparency as well as savings for energy consumers while streamlining the process for energy producers and retailers.