ELONCITY, Unite The Energy with Blockchain

ChainNews

In the third energy revolution that is being talked about widely, electricity is regarded as the dominant energy source for terminal consumption. The significance of the third energy revolution is not that new energy sources with higher energy density have been discovered. Instead, we have developed different sources of power through more decentralized and more readily available natural energy, and we have enhanced our energy efficiency and discovered revolutionary applications of electricity.

ELONCITY, a blockchain power program, is expected to generate a wider range of renewable energy community microgrids from its beginning. By largely improving the efficiency of the system, we could achieve true energy interconnection, balance local supply and demand, and achieve the expected goal of 100% renewable energy supply.

Along with the journey of high-carbon energy transforming to renewable energy, technological exploration will not only make the earth cleaner, but will also greatly improve the efficiency of the overall energy system. In the following scenarios in life, the collection and application of dispersed renewable energy will become a common phenomenon. The application of high-power equipment and electrical appliances will also be more sophisticated and extensive.

A schematic map of changes in the US power capacity structure, from the 2018 energy outlook and environmental impact evaluation of U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Based on an efficient energy storage system and intelligent network deployment, ELONCITY provides flexible energy storage and distribution of renewable energy for smart microgrids in the community. It is a new power technology solution that can balance supply and demand.

Throughout the development of the global power industry, during the past 100 years, decentralized power supplies transformed to a large-scale centralized power supply, and now it has begun to evolve to decentralized power supplies. The law behind this is the changes in costs and demand, which is an opportunity for ELONCITY.

Centralized Power Supply Mode Became More And More Uneconomical

As an ordinary electricity consumer, we need to understand that the global demand for electricity will be more thorough and extensive. No matter where you are, if we only rely on a centralized power supply system, the portion of electricity as a basic household expenditure will inevitably rise up. It is just a matter of time before we can tell the difference between the two.

Under the centralized power supply mode, consumers pay for electricity, including energy distribution costs and service costs. The service cost is far more than the cost of energy itself.

Although centralized power supply has achieved a large-scale popularization of electricity, it has the disadvantages of high costs and high losses. The current centralized power supply system follows the principle of “instantaneous balance of supply and demand”, which requires the excessive power supply to ensure reliable power consumption. In the process of power transmission and distribution, due to the existing technical defects, there will be a high cost of power transformation and transmission losses.

If we just rely on the centralized power supply mode, due to the wider demand of “electricity” for social production, more high energy-consumption power generation facilities, as well as transmission, transformation and distribution facilities are needed. It is inevitable for the government, the society, the electricity related enterprises, or the terminal electricity consumers, to bear a huge amount of expenditures to deal with the investment of facilities and high service costs. All of this makes a centralized power supply more and more uneconomical in future production.

China, the United States, and other high energy consumption countries, are all promoting the implementation of a peak-valley price by installing smart meters. However, the smart meters based on the centralized power supply system did not bring real benefits to consumers. On the contrary, it would be more convenient to bear the cost of its own loss with consumers.

Since 2010, more than 2 million smart meters have been installed throughout the country. As a result, homeowners with smart meters have found that electricity bills are soaring monthly. Therefore, a number of states have triggered a class action lawsuit against the power company which exploited electricity through smart meters.

The above picture shows that the transmission and distribution cost is almost two times the cost of electricity of the monthly bills in a US electricity consumer.

In recent years, Shanghai has also popularized smart meters. After using smart meters, Shanghai residents found that electricity bills doubled every month.

Reformation of the supplier of electricity led by the government can only be temporary. As early as 2006, the Nobel prize winner in economics, Jean Tirole and the famous electric economist Joe CISCO (Paul L. Joskow) explained the mechanism of “why the competitive reform of the retail market will not bring a reform dividend, in contrast, it will hinder the regurgitation-feeding of the reform dividend to the national economy.”

Traditional centralized supervision and third-party intervention have hampered the effective and low costs that consumers really need. The technical transformation of the traditional transmission and distribution system of electricity will only further increase the cost of electricity services. In 2014, the study of electricity reform in Texas showed that the market concentration of the regional electricity market has been reduced, but the level of competition did not. The pricing mode of electricity-reform areas still maintains a monopoly, while the electricity price change is constantly rising. The empirical analysis also confirms that, due to the lack of behavior analysis for electricity users and the pricing method of intelligent adjustment of balance for power supply and demand, the reform dividends from the electricity generation are mostly obtained by the power companies, but do not benefit industrial and commercial electricity users and residents.

Moreover, most of the main countries around the world have taken up the policy to “develop renewable energy, energy-saving and emission-reduction” as an important means to enhance the national competitiveness of the next stage. Germany, for example, is gradually closing down nuclear power plants and discarding thermal power plants. At the same time, they arranged high subsidies to decentralized renewable energy generators, and asked “public enterprises” to provide free distribution services for the renewable energy generation. Agencies in Germany predicted that during the process of government regulation, the pressure on the traditional power enterprises is likely to lead to users relying on large power grids, facing the situation of periodic power shortages, power supply instability and soaring electricity prices.

On 2nd July, China’s National Development and Reform Commission issued suggestions on innovating and improving the price mechanism for green development. The suggestions pointed out that the price signal should be used to guide the peak cut of power, to enhance the implementation of the peak-valley electricity price, to guide the electricity users to use electricity at off-peak hours, and to promote the development of energy storage through the difference of electricity prices and the compensation of auxiliary services. High electricity prices are encouraged to eliminate the backward production capacity, and partial electricity exemptions for green electricity should be implemented.

In the past hundred years, a centralized power supply has contributed to the popularization and economic benefits of electricity. But as consumers are in pursuit of high efficiency and low costs, a centralized power supply mode is no longer consistent with future energy development requirements. The global power supply mode has shown a backflow trend from a centralized power supply to a decentralized power supply.

The Development of Decentralized Renewable Energy Comes from Demand.

Social production has entered the age of information. The demand for electricity consumption has not only increased greatly, but has also triggered sophisticated requirements for smart power consumption. In daily life, the distribution of decentralized renewable energy supplies that people need is constantly increasing, such as, the increasing demand of mobile power sources for electric cars, and high-quality new communities which take the Smart Home as a selling point are.

Informational industries/energy users have more independent and customized demand for power supply, due to system security, high efficiency and energy saving. For example, Apple Corporation set up a large data center to reach 100% decentralized renewable energy supply in North Carolina. Previously, Google and Facebook also made a large-scale reform in the power supply system of their data centers.

Apple set up a large data center to achieve 100% decentralized renewable energy supply in North Carolina, USA. The picture shows its solar farm.

In the face of extreme weather, natural disasters, and even human factors, the disadvantages of a centralized power supply in power security have become more and more alarming.

In January 2008, most parts of southern China experienced extreme freezing weather and large-scale transmission and transformation electric facilities were damaged. Power failures have been widespread in the affected areas for more than ten days. The interruption of power transmission has resulted in power cuts in 17 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions). According to the information from the State Electricity Regulatory Commission, the largest power gap in the country was close to 40 million kilowatts, and coal was also in short supply. The Chinese power sectors began to reexamine the energy structure and standards of their power grid. Instead of the main power grid, it began to place emphasis on regional small grids, a decentralized renewable energy generation, and local power supplies.

The demand for production and life situation, as well as the natural environment, has been changing. Many reforms change from the “supply side” to the “demand side” in the field of electricity.

The reform led by consumers is going on like a raging fire. The existing system of traditional power enterprises cannot manage more and more complex transaction requests, and it is more difficult to meet the strong demand for energy supply security and decentralized renewable energy access to the regulators and users of power.

Energy Value Reconstruction Realized by Decentralized Mode

The time when the technological exploration of renewable energy does not demonstrate its high economic value, human foresight will not be able to compete with immediate interests. If social production has not entered the age of information, there will be no sophisticated demand for electricity. This makes the traditional power system relying on large-scale high carbon energy generation and centralized power supply, easily meet the needs of the society and maintain the oligopoly with extensive management and rough price differences to deal with power dispatching for a long time.

Nowadays, the demand for electricity has changed. Power enterprises relying on a traditional centralized power supply are losing their independent support from the perspective of controlling costs or meeting the comprehensive demand for electricity consumption.

In the age of information, consumer awareness in the field of energy is gradually awakening. The continuous high demand for intelligent power consumption calls for more decentralized renewable energy programs to be implemented, and the economic benefits of decentralized renewable energy for consumers are also being realized.

At present, the acquisition cost of renewable energy is getting lower and lower, and energy storage technology has matured. The price of energy storage equipment is continuing to decrease. In the near future, the technology and economy of renewable energy will reach a level comparable to conventional energy.

The continuous development and integration of power electronic technology, information technology, and intelligent energy management technology can provide reliable guarantees for users to improve their electricity efficiency and reduce the cost of power consumption. Together with the benefit of sharing new blockchain technology, a series of scientific and technological links, will help advanced power programs like ELONCITY, advocate the intelligence to achieve a balance of supply and demand with decentralized renewable energy, achieve high growth, and reconstruct the value of the energy system.

Core Competitiveness of ELONCITY, A New Solution for Power Technology

ELONCITY, a new power technology solution, combines the production and consumption of renewable energy together. The production power first meets the needs of local users, and the surplus is provided to adjacent users. We will optimize and integrate various kinds of energy resources and user demands to achieve real-time electricity prices and intelligent electricity consumption within the grids, so as to maximize the utilization of resources. The analysis of user behavior within the grid, the dynamic balance of power supply and demand, real-time electricity price, will help users to manage their own electricity usage habits, adjust electricity consumption according to the change of the electricity price, store electricity in a flexible and economical way, and distribute electricity according to the demand. This is the main service that ELONCITY brings to electricity users. In order to ensure the rational and stable operation of the system, and actually realize the effectiveness of intelligent regulation for the balance of power supply and demand, it not only needs rich experiences and full understanding of power technology, but it also needs a powerful operation of Internet information technology.

Andy Li, founder of ELONCITY, is a network specialist who is committed to changing man’s dependence on the traditional power transmission and distribution network by using the intelligent system at the edge of the network. He served as Chief Technology Officer of ChinaCache and as a cloud computing data researcher of Alibaba. In terms of global electricity distribution for mega data centers, he pioneers the application of direct current (DC) power system for enhancing the efficiency of data centers. Currently, the concept of “DC Data Center” that he promoted has become the trend of the industry. With CISCO’s 12 years of experience in the United States, Andy Li is proficient in traffic engineering and studies the problem of network intelligence marginalization, which he thinks is more efficient than the core network. POMCube, founded in 2014 by Andy Li, focuses on the development of efficient energy storage systems controlled by cloud computing. In 2018, Andy Li founded ELONCITY, hoping to regenerate renewable power using blockchain technology, so that more people can use renewable power more conveniently and economically.

Andy Li, founder of the ELONCITY, hopes to apply blockchain technology to the transformation of renewable power, and use intelligent systems at the edge of network to change human dependence on traditional power transmission networks.

The smart microgrid is a fully functional regional energy network, which integrates decentralized renewable energy power generating devices and decentralized energy storage devices. Among them, decentralized energy storage system could achieve variable granularity of control based on information technology. What’s more, an energy router is needed for the efficient transmission of information and discretized energy, thus making it possible for decentralized power storage systems to be further networked and closely linked with the information system, to realize the integrated scheduling of energy, computing, and storage. Based on a decentralized power storage system and energy routers, a “decentralized energy and information integration” management and control platform can be established to realize the connection of energy and information within the system and enhance the user experience and the energy efficiency of the whole system.

ELONCITY Model Solutions

An intelligent networked battery energy storage system (BESS) deployed on the customer premise harmonizes the local electricity supply and demand.

The customer-based or community-based renewable generation, such as solar PVs coupled with an intelligent networked BESS, would fulfill all or nearly all of the local energy demands.

Community DC power networks use renewable DC power more efficiently by eradicating energy loss from repeated AC-DC-AC conversions as well as eliminating the needs for costly AC power ancillary services.

Combining the local DC grid, DCBus Scheduler, with the networked BESS, would remove the need for costly ancillary services while eliminating the loss from repeated AC-DC-AC conversions. ELONCITY has collaborated with a coalition of global partners to develop key building block technologies for the ELONCITY model over the past four years. The collaborative efforts have resulted in a commercially

launched intelligent networked BESS, energy management software, DC appliances, and customer-based renewable power generators. These technologies have successfully deployed hundreds of buildings to achieve energy self-sufficiency.

ELONCITY believes in using evolving battery energy storage technology, photovoltaic arrays, small wind turbines, and renewable fuels that can be obtained in the community environment, a new type of power infrastructure that will help more and more communities build a decentralized miniaturized smart grid to balance the local supply and demand of renewable energy. The intelligent connection of these regional power networks can achieve a balance of supply and demand at the city level.

ELONCITY model Creates Sharing Ecology of Economy

ELONCITY’s new power technology solution will bring about a new community-based, decentralized, renewable energy supply model. In order to achieve the goal of the ELONCITY model, ELONCITY will provide an authorization-free energy network protocol (ECTP) to distribute the ELONCITY grid basic protocols to more smart microgrids in communities, so that more regional power networks can be self-sufficient in energy through efficient energy exchange.

The core of the protocol is a blockchain based trading system, which can recommend the equitable trading price within the network in real-time through an AI algorithm. Dynamic token pricing and real-time power transactions are completed through the token ECT issued by ELONCITY. In addition, the ECT intrinsic value will also be embodied by ELONCITY’s own power storage devices.

Household energy storage device users (such as POMCube NetZero) that are compatible with the protocol are likely to obtain ECT tokens through the process of storing energy and trading using equipment. ECT will also be used to subsidize and promote recycling loans to encourage communities to support ELONCITY energy network protocols, and further reduce the cost of energy storage equipment, and in the meantime, drive the ELONCITY model to be implemented in more areas.

Furthermore, blockchain platforms enable the ELONCITY communities to establish an auditable record to track the sources of electricity generated in communities and to ensure that the source is not greenhouse gas or fossil fuel. The auditable tracking of power generation is essential for power evaluation based on power generation sources, and can also monitor development of decarbonization of communities.

The founder Andy Li believes that blockchain technology based on sharing and its consensus is of vital importance for building a cooperative and dispersed renewable energy future. Economic tokens in the blockchain field will be an effective catalyst to promote consumers, power products, service providers, power technology providers, financial partners, local governments, public institutions, and more stakeholders to join in the sharing of benefits to achieve a safer, cleaner, and more energy efficient energy future with renewable energy supports. ELONCITY firmly believes that renewable clean electricity will become our main source of primary energy in the near future.