GridPlus is LIVE in Texas!

Today we are opening the doors to our Retail Electricity Provider. This is the first major, public step towards our vision for the future of energy.

Buy your Electricity with Crypto

If you live in either the Oncor or Centerpoint regions in the great state of Texas, you may now sign up to receive your power from GridPlus! We are going live with competitive rates and will accept both ether and DAI (as well as ACH and credit cards) for payments. We will likely add bitcoin support in the near future.

Onwards into V2

This launch covers a beta program, which is limited to more traditional REP products. Our current products are all fixed-price, post-pay which should be very familiar to individuals in Texas. Over the coming months, we will be working towards more innovative products and upgrades that bring us closer to the vision outlined in our white paper.

These future products will likely include:

Faster settlement cycles

current products are settled on a monthly interval, but it is our goal for future products to approach near real time intervals (~15 minutes). In Texas, electricity prices change based on supply and demand in the market on 15 minute intervals, thus it would be ideal to compress billing and payment down to this interval level. Significant price swings can exist in this real time market, but when averaged out over a long period, the real time rate is nearly always advantageous to the end user compared to locking in a fixed-price product. Settling on a short interval is beneficial to both the customer and Grid+ as it lowers our credit risk which then flows to lower prices for customers as we will no longer have to bake risk adjustments into our products to cover bad debt from non-paying customers. It also serves as a principle use case for the Lattice1 device in the energy context by allowing customers to make real time payments in a 100% self-custodial manner (we don’t want to hold your monies).

Demand response

One of the more exciting use cases for the Lattice1 is as a smart home manager. In Texas, customers who consume less electricity during windows of high demand can realize significant savings. When demand massively exceeds expected usage (think really hot days when everyone is cranking their AC) the price of electricity can soar since ERCOT utilizes a scarcity pricing model. If you are wondering the magnitude of these price swings, a single MWh may cost on average ~$50 but the cap ERCOT allows per MWh if demand soars is $9,000. One mechanism for driving deep savings is something called “demand response”, which means the ability to turn off large power sinks when we anticipate a price spike. If customers are able to reduce their consumption during these large increases in price, they can realize significant savings on their bill.

We are currently exploring integrations with a variety of smart thermostats and smart plugs which control pool pumps to drive this functionality. HVAC and pool systems combine for roughly ~80% of a consumer’s energy load, thus if we are able to dispatch these systems during large price swings, our customers’ bills should decrease. We will continue investigating these devices and may start integrating towards the end of 2019. A precursor to integration is a fully functioning Lattice1. While the electro-mechanical components are essentially complete, we still have firmware and regulatory testing to finish prior to putting this hardware in our customers’ homes. We are still on target for a Q2 first production run for the Lattice1.

Layer 2 payments

Although beta users will soon be able to pay their bills with ether and DAI, these payments are restricted to on-chain transactions. This works for monthly settlement cycles, but quickly becomes untenable as we approach shorter settlement intervals. We have been exploring integrations with various state-channel networks as well as plasma chains in order to reduce the per transaction cost. It is encouraging to see advances in plasma development that are nearing the stage to be tested in the wild. In particular, we are excited about Plasma Group’s Plasma Spec published last week. Once Lattice1 development is completed, we plan to allocate more resources into exploring these integrations at a deeper level.

Keep Up to Date!

We will have additional updates coming in the next few weeks, likely after Alex and I join the community at ETHDenver. Please stop by and chat, especially if you have interesting ways to utilize the Lattice1. As always, you can keep up to date with progress on our blog and by subscribing to our mailing list.

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.