Hi, Team! There're some questions from Russian community which I will forward to you.
1. What assets and resources (financial, technical, HR, etc.) do you have now in order to implement your vision?
2. Could you give the brief comparison of XiWATT model and your competitors, for example, WePower?
Hi there!
1. Firstly, check out our new blog post for the latest update: We have retained a law firm, McCarter & English, which has had experience with ICOs that have raised over $100M. The firm also has experience with energy regulations and this partnership will help us navigate the current regulatory landscape in tandem with the development of our platform.
As for our resources, we have a pretty diverse background among the co-founders. Combined, we feel we have the right expertise across the financial, technological and energy sector. Two of our co-founders are electrical engineers with one having an extensive background in the renewable energy space. I'd like to highlight Yasir's experience as he was the project engineer on a $250 million project, involved in all phases from concept, visibility, construction, commissioning energization, landowner relationships, and grid operations. The project had a name plate capacity of 200 MW.
We have already listed some advisors with considerable influence. We’ve got some big news in terms of partnerships that we’ll announce shortly. This includes the announcement of new key advisors and partnerships. We choose our advisors based on their ability to actually advise us, instead of titles. Currently, there are a lot of paid advisors and overinflated teams in the space. Having said that, we have key advisors working with us that are recognized in the space, which will be announced at strategic times before the pre-sale.
2. This is a fundamental question that we get a lot and it was answered on page one, but I'll paste it here again
Hi,
Here is a more detailed breakdown:
WePower (Based out of Estonia)
Wepower is a platform that allows renewable energy projects to sell their energy on the platform by tokenizing it. The tokenized energy is called “Energy Token”. Each Energy token represents 1 kWh of energy. The purpose of doing this is to allow for upcoming or existing renewable energy projects to raise capital (for expansion or creation) by selling this energy in advance.
Wepower, “WPR” tokens give its holders priority access to the auctions which will be selling the energy tokens and in addition to this, the holders of WPR will be receiving 0.9% of the energy produced by all of the renewable energy projects that sign on to the platform.
In terms of the business model, they don’t spell out why this would be beneficial. Usually, the problem with building large-scale renewable energy projects is not the lack of funds, it’s the ability to find customers willing to consume the energy. In most places, once a developer has a PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) with a customer, they can easily find financing from traditional sources, especially so in Europe (in most cases the loans can be at 0%). If the project is already at a point where they have a PPA signed, it makes little sense to “sell energy in advance”. The business model outlined in the Wepower paper does not get into the details of the complexity involved with the actual sale of energy from these renewable energy projects.
To put it simply, they’ve taken the long road in offering a simple loan system by way of tokenizing the sale of future energy production.
Power Ledger (Based out of Australia)
Power ledger provides enterprise level software that will tackle the business layer of the Grid. It’s success depends on working with existing utilities, suppliers and the Independent system operators (responsible for balancing the Grid). In the white paper they listed out a number of applications but didn’t go into details of how they would operate. Some of the proposed applications heavily rely on futuristic concepts that have not yet panned out in the real world. Either way, their enterprise software looks promising.
In terms of how they utilize the blockchain within their platform, it doesn’t serve any clear advantage when compared to traditional implementations. They are setting up for a future where P2P energy trading becomes a reality. In order for this to occur, there has to be a breakthrough in energy storage technologies (batteries) for the consumer market (Tesla is working on this with their Gigafactories).
In terms of their token “PWR”, I had a tough time understanding the mechanics of the token based on the white paper, it sort of made sense, but I have yet to fully grasp its purpose. Given that their platform will utilize private and public blockchains, I don’t believe it’s integral to the platform. This is really a mute point because most blockchains shoehorn their token into the system to allow the raising of funds.
RED - Restart Energy (Based out of Romania)
I would have grouped this with power ledger as they are proposing a similar platform, but I felt power ledger deserved its own breakdown.
For RED, it’s an existing utility based company that’s developing software solutions for maintaining the grid, P2P trading and energy marketplace for purchasing and selling energy. This type of software is intended to be used by Independent System Operators (ISO), utility companies and/or large scale customers. The white paper gives a very high-level description of what they are trying to do, but it lacks details for how the system works or why it’s needed. I didn’t see a business model that explains the need for the MWATT token.
They are also making some very bold claims by stating they will expand across the globe in a few years, this type of system adoption would require the cooperation of governments, states, utilities, ISO/RTOs…. The list goes on. To understand why this claim is farfetched, you have to understand how regulated the energy market is in most parts of the world. In some cases, it’s because of monopolization but the real concern is how controlled and secure this type of infrastructure needs to be.
In terms of their token, they describe it as a “virtual battery”. I’m not sure why they compare it to this as it would more accurately be described as an access token. More concerningly is that they are selling this to the masses when the main users of their platform will be the RTOs/ISOs, Utitlies and large-scale energy consumers/producers.
Grid+ (Based out of the US)
Grid Plus is a project by Consensys. I’ve read their white paper multiple times and it’s one of the few white papers that does an excellent job of educating the reader in what they are trying to accomplish.
Grid+ wants to enter as an energy retailer in deregulated markets. To understand this, you have to understand how the Grid operates in the US. To summarize it briefly, the grid in the US is made up of 4 components:
Generation - Power plants, nuclear plants, wind farms, etc. (producers of energy)
Transmission - These are the high voltage lines that bring electricity to the city
Distribution - These are the lower voltage lines that carry the electricity into neighbourhoods down into your homes.
Retail - Called different things in different places, but they are the company that buys energy from the generator at wholesale prices and sells it to residents.
Grid+ is trying to enter the market as a retailer. They're developing a hardware “agent” that will sit in your home and arbitrage energy (buy energy at lower prices and store it (if there is a battery), then sell when it’s high) on your behalf, along with other functionality. Like Powerledger, their current implementation doesn’t serve any advantages over existing implementations, but they are preparing for a world in which P2P energy trading will become a reality. Again, for this to happen we would have to see mass battery adoption in the consumer market.
The GRID token represents a certain amount of energy at a wholesale price. It’s basically a voucher that gives you wholesale energy instead of the marked up price. You will have to be a customer of Grid+ in order to use the GRID token, they plan on launching their platform in Texas.
Grid+ clearly has a qualified team and their whitepaper explains very well what they are doing. In terms of their business model, they can be successful in Texas, but in the long term, they probably have a better chance of being successful by licensing their technology and the only reason someone would want their tech is if p2p trading of energy becomes a reality. They’ll have to compete with other companies who are working on the same problem.
I felt Grid+ was one of the only projects where they explained in detailed how their project will work. I loved their white paper.
XiWATT (based out of the US)
On a high level, XiWATT is a platform that is connecting renewable energy developers, customers and investors to each other with promised benefits to each group of users. We provide a means for the creation, funding and management of renewable energy projects which is managed on the blockchain. In our Whitepaper, we explain in detail how we allow for the creation and crowdfunding of renewable energy assets.This is distinct from Wepower’s model, where you are purchasing tokenized energy for later use (essentially a loan). In XiWATT’s model, we are tokenizing the underlying energy asset along with the energy production. Our platform is built on the concept of “Sectors”. Each sector represents a renewable energy developer and a customer coming together to form a renewable energy project. Once the terms of the sale of energy are established between the developer and customer, the sector is opened up for crowdfunding. The participants who fund the project receive a “sector token” which is the tokenized form of installed capacity (size) of the sector. So, essentially the crowdfunders own a piece of the renewable energy asset. The energy revenues that are produced from the sector are also tokenized in the form of “NRG” token which represent $1 worth of energy.
The sectors on the platform are similar to the concept of mini-ICOs, but instead, each ICO is a renewable energy project. They are set up independently to each other via unique smart contracts. This allows each sector the flexibility necessary to navigate the intricate local and state level regulations. You can read through our white paper for some example use cases. One of our core applications is called “Cloud Net Metering”, which allows users to use the NRG tokens as credits to pay utility bills via 3rd party billing system set up by XiWATT. This means that users would be able to use the energy produced from renewable energy assets without actually being connected to the same grid. NRG tokens can also be used to simply “cash out” as they have a 1:1 ratio with $1.
The XIW token (the token that will be sold in the TGE) is integral to the ecosystem of our platform. Unlike most tokens, we spent an extensive amount of time creating a robust economy around the token use. I really can’t do it justice by summarizing it in a few sentences, but I promise, if you take the time to read the white paper, you’ll actually understand the need and use of the token. Having said that here is a one-liner for the token:
“The XIW Token Model is predicated on a simple barter economy between customers and developers on the XiCE platform. Developers need XIW tokens in order to bid on renewable energy projects, and the only way they can acquire it is through customers offering it. As the platform grows, more customers become available, which means that there is more business to be acquired by participating developers, but only if they have the XIW tokens to satisfy bidding conditions.”
TLDR: Most of the current energy projects in the ICO space are trying to create a platform that enables p2p energy trading (among other things, but this is the core application that would leverage the use of the blockchain), this will not be possible until we see battery penetration in the consumer market.
Wepower is trying to boost the funding of renewable energy projects by allowing them to sell their energy in advance at a cheaper rate via auctions. To put it simply, you’re giving a loan to the renewable energy project. In my opinion, this business model makes little sense as these types of projects can simply get a very favorable rate from a bank (in some cases interest-free).
In comparison, XiWATT allows users to co-own the actual renewable energy project. The users don’t have to be directly tied to the same grid as the renewable energy project in order to “consume” the energy made possible via an application called “Cloud Net Metering”
