Andy Li: Using ELONCITY to Produce Clean, Renewable Electric Energy to Benefit the Public

ChainNews

Andy Li, is yet another Internet guru venturing into the field of blockchain technology. As early as 2000, Li was already known as the world’s leading pioneer in Internet infrastructure. For the past 20 years, Li has been at the front lines of the industry, using emerging systems and technologies before everyone else, particularly in areas of construction, integration, optimization, and transformation of Internet infrastructure.

During the process of exploring technology, Li’s understanding and knowledge of Internet infrastructure has continued to grow immensely. The main areas of concern that he observed went outside the boundaries of traditional Internet technology and extended into the field of electrical energy. In 2018, Andy hopes to use blockchain technology to help grow the field of electrical energy that he has studied for so many years now, and see ELONCITY’s new electrical energy program through to completion. Li hopes to finally solve dead-end loops in the evolving electricity industry.

Technology Makes the Application of Renewable Energy a Possibility

In the field of Internet infrastructure construction, Andy Li has always been in the front lines. To build MPLS (a technology using label-guiding data to support high-speed and efficient data transmission. It can support multi-layer internet protocol and accommodate second layer multi-data chain technology) Internet, using Packet over SO-NET (Synchronous Optical Networking, a technology used in the high-speed operation of backbone networks) running multiple large-scale backbone networks to deploy the earliest cloud computing data center prototypes in China. At every leap in Internet infrastructure, this project hosted by Li has become more and more widespread among “netizens.” This has only given Li a stronger sense of personal mission to build up public utilities.

“The Internet (including Content Distribution Network CDN/ECN), logistics network, and power grid all have similar principles of operation, especially in improving user experience, reducing and stabilizing backbone network flow (demand-side traffic shaping), and improving backbone network efficiency. I received inspiration from CDN network, and then during the process of assisting Alibaba to optimize their super data center, I found that the same principle can be used in promoting power grid efficiency. Therefore, my focus shifted from weak electricity to strong electricity. I hope to make good use of what I have learned, not only to solve the Internet infrastructure problem, but also to promote rapid growth of the power grid, improve renewable energy’s absorption capacity, and help transform renewable electric energy into our primary energy source.”

Li’s thought process behind his problem-solving method is a careful but precise engineering-type process — finding the core problem and working to find the most effective solution. Since his early years of joining the industry, Li’s pursuit of growth has been consistent. To be truly committed to the construction of Internet infrastructure, one must start at the root, vigorously cut costs, focus on maintaining top quality, reduce steps in production and distribution, and thereby reduce costs in order to produce a winning industry product.

From 2009 to 2011, during his time at Alibaba as a Researcher, Li was responsible for building the first direct-current super data center in Asia and around the world. During this process, Andy came to understand the advantages of direct-current networks.

“Traditional data centers use UPS to maintain the integrity of data. This makes electric energy be repeatedly converted between AC and DC, resulting in energy losses of up to 37%. That is why form then on that I dedicated my research in direct-current power distribution. Today, we can see that 240V high-voltage direct-current electricity has become the standard for super data centers in China and other countries across the world.”

After much careful research and testing, Li also suggests that the national Internet industry should unite and move large-operation cold storage data centers to Northwest China. China’s Northwest region has an abundance of renewable energy sources and cooler ambient temperatures to help not only reduce land and energy costs, but also to increase the efficiency of integrated super data centers.

Alibaba, for various reasons, did not follow Li’s suggestion to move the super data center to Northwest China at the time. However, several years later Alibaba and top domestic and foreign Internet companies followed through with the migration to China’s renewable energy-rich northwestern region and adopted a large-scale deployment program for 240V high-voltage direct-current energy.

“People always criticized me for being in a headlong rush for innovation. In the innovation of Alibaba’s super data center, I moved to quickly and failed. But later, I proved that my judgments were right. My vision was right.”

Because Li’s natural intuition for innovation continually faced industry restrictions, Li chose to silently move on. Li proved the possibility of using direct-current power grids for large-scale deployment in residential and commercial buildings and he understood from experience all of the many advantages that direct-current electricity could bring to the community. Therefore, Li chose to continue working towards his own ideas, and gave everything that he had to begin his business of “benefitting the people.” Improving distributed smart energy storage systems for renewable energy projects, helping residents use local free solar energy and energy storage technology, and solving the electricity supply issue for a lower price and reduce dependence on petrochemical energy.

“In the logistics network, we use a large quantity of warehousing and data mining to help us to manage inventory and shorten completion time for orders. In the CDN/ECN network, data mining is used to find hotpoint content, and then the disk is used to copy hotpoint content to the nearest network link in order to improve user experience. Although electricity follows the law of conservation of energy, fortunately, we were able to save energy with distribute power generating equipment such as PV batteries and small H-axis wind turbines. By doing this, we can utilize energy locally without having to go back to the power plant. We make extensive use of machine learning to help each microgrid understand its electricity demand. Then we can find a balance in renewable energy supply and demand with the goal of improving the user experience and reducing energy costs for a cleaner and more affordable energy source.”

In Addition to Technology, We Need a Shared Mission and Lofty Ideals to Achieve Clean Energy

Li, is regarded as the greatest in the field of Internet infrastructure. His peers respect him not only because his strong technical skill,but also for his distinctive personality and great ideals. In 2011, Li left Alibaba, and his resignation letter is still discussed on the Internet today. The focus of the letter is to not give up your dreams.

In his last speech in 2009, the famous English historian and intellectual, Tony Robert Judt, pointed out the following problem: “Operational and inequality issues in American society today it makes us worried. Why it is so difficult to imagine a different society? We seem to have lost the ability to question the moment, let alone how to provide alternatives to our issues. Why is it so difficult to design a different system of public interest that is outside of our imagination?

Andy seems to be the “minority” from Judt’s speech — the one who calls things into question, seeks new solutions, and designs new systems to benefit mankind. A summary of “How to Evaluate Andy Li’s Departure from Alibaba” is as follows:

Andy Li, an early pioneer in Chinese internet backbone facility, first joined Alibaba because of Alibaba CEO Jack Ma’s inspirational words, “Do a truly meaningful business.” However, later, Li left Alibaba because the business model for its e-commerce infrastructure gradually turned into the same dilemma that ChinaCache faced.

In their discussion, Internet users expressed respect and admiration for Li, They understand that Li’s goal is to pursue business that will benefit the public. “Andy is a person full of ideas. He gets rid of people with bad taste.” Another person said, “I can see that true public service is the beat of his heart.”

Internet users sense that “in a revolutionized and experimental course of history, innovators will always encounter tension between order and revolution.”

Let’s Try Using Tony Judt’s View of “Public Intellectual” to Further Understand Andy Li’s Actions:

“What we have seen in the past 10 years is that after steadily transferring public responsibility to the private sector, there are not any obvious advantages. To begin with, utilities are extremely inefficient. The reason is that the government does not have the technology to operate these utilities, and brokers and middlemen will take away profits from public business, if they continue to be run by the government. These public businesses lose money, and taxpayers foot the bill. Although privatization can be profitable under government supervision, government-driven policies and private sector guidelines for maximizing investor profits have serious conflicts. As a result, investors owns utilities, not people. Most power distribution companies in the United States continue to increase service fees, eventually causing customers to foot the bill. However, the more serious issue is the issue of loopholes in laws and policies that turn the middle-class into the main taxpayer. The middle-class pays the extra service and maintenance fees, only serving to widen the gap between rich and poor.”

From Internet infrastructure construction to the energy field, the biggest problem facing Andy Li is not technology innovation. As a technology elite, Li has already constructed an advanced electric power solution based on distributed renewable energy and smart energy storage systems. However, out-of-date power industry mechanisms and complicated industry interest groups are still the major obstacles for technology innovation. Despite difficulties and experiencing many things that he disliked, Andy Li still decided that throwing himself into the energy public industry was something worth fighting for.

“I used to think that in order to do something that I wanted to do, I needed to have the power to do it first. So I desperately tried to fight and perform to gain more power by getting promoted, and I hoped that I would have enough strength to do the right things. But then I found out that you shouldn’t’ be in other’s way. The unspoken rule for the executives was not ‘make-it,’ but rather ‘do not make mistakes.’ There is an old Chinese saying, ‘not seeking glory, but seeking no mistakes.’ These people are ensuring that no one touches other’s big chess.”

“Our energy storage device, iCan, debuted in 2016 at CES (International Consumer Electronics Show). Even though it was half the price of the competition, we still could not get it onto the market. Later in early 2017, iCan was demonstrated in Southern California Edison (California’s second best power company) ‘s future family showroom. We originally thought this would be the key to unlocking iCan sales, but after patiently waiting for three quarters we still didn’t receive any orders.”

“We didn’t know it then, but grid operators who worked with the centralized power supply model didn’t really want to change the old industrial structure of the power system. After all, that would mean changing their own lives, and they didn’t want to lose their jobs.”

In the past several hundred years, the traditional centralized electricity system have significantly contributed to the power-production and economic benefits. However, in recent years power network distribution costs have exceeded 50% of electricity bills, causing large electric power plants to break down under the pressure of ever-growing grid costs. Therefore, the centralization of the centralized power supply system no longer satisfies future energy development requirements. Global energy supply methods have been shifting away from centralized and towards a decentralized system.

Recently, the cost of renewable energy has been dropping. Due to the rapid growth of electric vehicles, energy storage technology has seen widespread benefits and the price of energy storage equipment is also dropping. Renewable energy will be more economical than conventional energy for the foreseeable future.

Energy consumer awareness in the information age has been on the rise. The ever-growing demand for sophisticated and smart electricity calls for more distributed, renewable energy projects, and the economic benefits of distributed renewable energy are beginning to emerge as well. This is the development opportunity that Andy Li had in mind in 2018 with the ELONCITY community model.

In the past, people criticized Li for being too far ahead of the times, but this time, Andy was perfectly in line with the times.

“We will never put our interests ahead of our clients, or we will achieve reform. I would like to tell the shareholders that we have to embrace the future and face the challenges. The era of a permanent job is gone. If it is not Andy today,someone will come along tomorrow or the next day to innovate the industry. If you don’t change your own life, someone will come along and change it for you.”