On February 5, 2019, GridPlus entered into an exclusive distribution agreement with Rynergy, a Singapore-based startup led by Daniel Rye. This agreement marks the beginning of GridPlus’ planned international expansion.

Daniel formally trained in electrical & electronic engineering in Sheffield, England. He spent the next decade in telecommunications, “engineering the Internet”. After moving to Singapore in 2010, he decided to map his skills into renewable energy and spent a number of years developing micro-grids and energy storage deployments across the South East Asia region. In 2017 he founded advisory firm, Rynergy, that sits at the intersection between clean technology and blockchain, IoT and machine learning which together hopes to enable the next generation of energy services.

Daniel has followed the GridPlus project since inception and has been in active conversation with our team on licensing the GridPlus technology stack since late 2017. Dan’s thoughts upon his discovery of the GridPlus project:

I came across the GridPlus project in 2017 and it stood out among other energy-related blockchain projects because it was developing a viable solution to an existing problem rather than a speculative solution for an application that might emerge in the future. The pedigree of the team and support from ConsenSys was a major plus and their early progress in product development showed me that they were both serious and excellent at what they do.

For the GridPlus team, 2018 was a year of building and 2019 marks the deployment of systems in the wild, starting with Texas and next moving into Singapore through our relationship with Rynergy. Singapore is a highly suitable early market because it is liberalized, stable and has well defined regulations. The government is progressive on both technology and regulation, incentivizing innovation and regional expansion. It is an ideal place to showcase commercial success before wider rollouts.

GridPlus officially went live to the public in the ERCOT region of Texas on February 8th of 2019, following a successful multi-month alpha test focused on hardening our systems, grid connections, billing platforms and crypto integrations. For those of you who live in Texas and are interested in becoming a GridPlus customer, please visit our retailer here.

Going live marked a historic moment for our company. It was a step that signified the comfort that we have in the technology we’ve built to date. Gearing up to our go-live, our increased technical confidence prepared us to revisit conversations with entrepreneurs and larger enterprises interested in using the GridPlus tech stack.

In December of 2018, Daniel and GridPlus began exploring deeply what a licensing deal may look like. The goal of GridPlus from the start was the help with the adoption of blockchain technologies without compromising on user sovereignty. These goals can best be visualized in the hardware platform we have spent the past two years creating — the Lattice1.

We worked through various iterations and came to the following licensing structure. Rynergy will be the exclusive partner of GridPlus in Singapore, in other words GridPlus will not provide support to any other energy retailer in Singapore. Rynergy will offer the Lattice1 to its customers and will accept GRID redemptions from its customers in order to access the wholesale price of electricity. GridPlus will provide Rynergy with help getting started, using our tech, hiring talented developers and with general crypto support.

Daniel’s plans are to commercialize next-generation energy services based on Ethereum and the Lattice1, that both optimize grid performance and lower electricity costs. These services are planned to be rolled-out in a phased approach starting with what Daniel refers to as the ‘autonomous retailer’ service. Subsequent services will plan to integrate home IoT-enabled devices to offer automated demand-response capabilities based on market pricing. Later DER dispatch capabilities and eventually peer-to-peer energy trading may be added.

There are three initial project stages (1) concept development (2) proof of value (beta service) (3) commercial launch. As part of stage 1, Rynergy has developed a relationship with GridPlus and engaged local authorities — the energy market authority (EMA), the energy market company (EMC) who regulates and operates the electricity wholesale market respectively as well as the incumbent infrastructure provider, Singapore Power Assets. This is an important step so that the Rynergy team can iron out regulatory hurdles and gain support.

This will not be an instant process, but the Rynergy team is committed to executing its goals to democratize the energy markets in Singapore. The next steps include a funding round, which is a predicate to launching into phase 2 of beta service. GridPlus welcomes the proliferation of our technology and we are enthusiastic in sharing the details of our first licensing deal. If you are an entrepreneur or enterprise interested in building a blockchain enabled energy retailer in another region, please do not hesitate to reach out.

We are excited for a world wherein thousands or millions of Lattices are providing security and sovereignty to their owners. We have grand visions for how this hardware will help with the maturation of the crypto ecosystem — and we’re just getting started.

Disclaimer

The forward-looking statements in this update are subject to numerous assumptions, risks and uncertainties which are subject to change over time. There are many risk factors, including those relating to blockchain and cryptographic technology generally, as well Grid+’s business, operations and results of operations, that could cause our actual results or developments anticipated by us not to be realized or, even if substantially realized, to fail to achieve any or all of the benefits that could be expected therefrom, We reserve the right to change the plans, expectations and intentions stated herein at any time and for any reason, in our sole and absolute discretion, and we undertake no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise. ACCORDINGLY, WE RECOMMEND THAT YOU DO NOT RELY ON, AND DO NOT MAKE ANY FINANCIAL DECISION OR INVESTMENT BASED ON, THE STATEMENTS CONTAINED IN THIS UPDATE — INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY SELLING OR TRADING OF GRID TOKENS, ETHER OR ANY OTHER CRYPTOGRAPHIC OR BLOCKCHAIN TOKEN, OR THE SECURITIES OF ANY COMPANY.