Reply from Eloncity ECO - Andy:

Not exactly, as long as the efforts are not limited by the local government’s franchise laws. We hope that local governments can see the value of the program in terms of using more renewable energy and hopefully make the energy exchange within the community tax free. We expect that communities, along with the financial industry will be able to build the infrastructure without subsidies from governments. 

Reply from Eloncity CEO - Andy:

The reward is handed out every one megawatt-hour of energy stored instead of the integer number of ECT reward achieved. Miners who harvest renewable energy and store them for later use will receive 16 ECT for one megawatt-hour of energy initially. When the aggregated amount of stored energy doubles from the previously aggregated amount, the reward is cut in half for every megawatt-hour of stored renewable energy.

Reply from Eloncity CEO - Andy:

We respect Mr. Musk and share a similar vision to power the world with renewable energy. However, we don’t believe the centralized method (top-down model) will help us reach the goal. In fact, we think the approach taken by Tesla Energy will run into plenty of obstacles and therefore ELONCITY will continue the entourage by adopting the decentralized way (bottom-up model) and make renewable energy more affordable so that the rest of the world (85% or higher) can contribute and achieve the ultimate goal - Powering the world with renewable energy.

Reply from Eloncity ECO - Andy:

Generally, each household has a rooftop system anywhere from 4kWp to 7kWp and about 4 hours to 6.5 hours of sunlight on average. If we assume a regular household has 5kWp and 5 hours of sunlight, it will produce 25 kWh a day, which is roughly enough for one household in the US without EV. It will take roughly 3,500 years to produce 32GWh. Please note the reward is handed out every one megawatt-hour of energy stored. You will initially receive 16 ECT, in this case, for about 40 days. You will receive only 8 ECT when the aggregated stored energy reaches 1TWh but is still shy of 3TWh. Once the aggregated amount reaches 3TWh, but is short of 7TWh, your reward for every megawatt-hour of stored renewable energy will be given. The reward will continue to be given out until we finally use renewable energy as our primary energy.  

Reply from Eloncity ECO - Andy:

1) What is a “micro-grid”?

      A micro-grid is a small electric network at the edge of the grid. In the ELONCITY Model, a micro-grid consists of up to 1,000 residences and the DC-bus, a pair of electric cables running at 1,500V, which connects each of these residences through the DC-bus Endpoint, a DC/DC converter. Unlike its AC counterpart, A DC-bus Endpoint does not connect to the DC-bus all the time. Instead, the DC-bus Endpoint only gets connected to the DC-bus when it is granted by the DC-bus Scheduler to send or receive energy. The micro-grid facilitates the energy exchange among residences while the DC-bus allows people to share energy storage so that no one has to purchase a full capacity of energy storage to survive. The ELONCITY model is designed to speed up the process of achieving a zero carbon footprint by making locally produced renewable energy, which is made available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week extremely competitive so that the community can become self-sufficient and seldom rely on the grid for energy. Even if the micro-grid community cannot produce all the energy it needs, it will only consume energy from the grid at a constant rate during the off- peak hours and hence greatly improve the stability of the grid and its ability to absorb renewable energy. The micro-grid also helps improve the resilience of the grid during natural or manmade disasters.

2) How can you solve the problem of pricing electric companies?

Making the consumer an energy producer (prosumer) so that people have the ability to say “NO” to expensive electric companies (utilities). We also use blockchain to make our price transparent, competitive and complete so that prosumers will use energy wisely, earn their investment back sooner and prevent anyone from the arbitrage of electricity. Please see the white paper for more details about these mechanisms.  

Eloncity CEO - Andy:

Well, the solar energy is given to us for free. The conversion cost is yet free. What ELONCITY hopes to do is to streamline the distributed generation so that the conversion cost, from solar energy to electricity, can be minimized. Here are a few working items

ZNE and the like program will pre-install PV panels and hopefully eliminate redundant roof insurance (for leakage) as well as redundant installation labor.
Working with developer to pre-install connector for installing Energy Storage System so that, again, the installation cost can be minimized.
Working with PUC to eliminate NEM programs so that banks will be willing to make loans to rooftop solar projects again. Otherwise, it is highly recommended for customers to run its own projects by hiring local roofers to install the PV panels at much lower cost.
The target price should not exceed $1.6/Wp given the price of PV panels have dropped significantly since 5/31/18. Chinese governments are likely reducing or eliminating the subsidies for the rooftop PV as the production cost is now equal or better than that of Utilities. Therefore, there is an oversupply of PV panels for the time being, and this should last until Chinese citizens resume their previous appetite for distributed generation.     
Building community solar instead of rooftop so that the building cost can be minimized, Large solar farms are being built at less than dollars per Wp while the rooftop PV costs as much as $4.00 per Wp

Eloncity CEO - Andy:
Price transparency, Price Equilibrium, and Complete Market. The price transparency will encourage users to invest on distributed resources and realize the real cost of energy. Price equilibrium is achieved through the elasticity injected by the energy storage system on both supply and demand sides. The dynamic mapping of ECT and electricity in a given microgrid, corresponding to the use of energy storage, guides users to use electricity intelligently while minimizing the waste of renewable energy produced over the off peak hours. The complete market, achieved through perfect information collected through IOT technologies built into ELONCITY hardware platforms, prevents people from arbitrage and hence enable participation of the exchange market through fairness. These are the value from BlockChain trading in electricity industry. When BlockChain technologies are coupled with distributed generation (or distributed energy resources), people actually gain back the control on when, where and how the power infrastructure should be built - It is absolute true for at least the personal energy infrastructure.