In the University of Deira in the Philippine capital of Manila, there is a six-story school building with a black photovoltaic panel on the roof that together form a small power station. The special feature of this power station is that it applies blockchain technology in its production and consumption. Providing these technologies is a Chinese company called Energo Labs.
“The power station has been in operation for half a year.†Cheng Changsheng, strategic manager of Energo Labs, said in an interview with the First Financial 1°C reporter that the company’s recent evaluation report on the power station showed that blockchain technology played a role in it. What we do (blockchain technology applications) is a lot more economical for producers and consumers."
Due to the optimistic view of the blockchain in the energy field, during this time, Cheng Changsheng and his colleagues traveled throughout Southeast Asia to seek more cooperation projects.
According to a recent report from industry research firm GTM Research, energy has become one of the most widely used areas of blockchain technology.
Some insiders believe that blockchain technology will help the photovoltaic industry at a critical juncture to find new breakthroughs. But they also said that the integration of blockchain technology and distributed energy is still at a very preliminary stage, and it is still far from the scale of application.
the cost is too high
De La Salle University's photovoltaic + blockchain power station is an experimental demonstration project developed by Energo Labs in cooperation with a local clean energy producer in the Philippines. The goal is to enable renewable energy such as solar energy to be produced locally, consumed locally, and then sold to the other users.
The project involved a total of three teaching buildings at the University of De La Salle, which form a microgrid system. One of them is equipped with a photovoltaic panel with a capacity of only 12 kilowatts (equivalent to 12 degrees of electricity per hour), and the electricity generated can be shared to the other two by point-to-point (between buildings and buildings). Building use.
Founded in 2016, Energo Labs is a blockchain startup with headquarters in Shanghai and currently employs approximately 30 people. The company is trying to combine blockchain technology with the energy sector to create a distributed energy autonomous (DAE) community scenario.
The most well-known point of the blockchain is the relationship with Bitcoin. But in essence, the blockchain is a database book that records all transaction records. Unlike traditional ones, these data are no longer stored in a centralized form, but are decentralized and cannot be changed.
“The blockchain is a natural shared platform that everyone can access. It can store data under the agreed rules, but it cannot be modified. It does not need to rely on an authority to protect the security and credibility of the data. It is a decentralized ledger." Jiangsu Aikang Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Ikang Technology", 002610.SZ) Xu Gangming, chief technology officer of the Blockchain Application Research Institute, said in an interview with the first financial 1°C reporter .
According to his own business, Cheng Changsheng believes that the blockchain can deconstruct the existing centralized power network architecture from the physical structure through decentralization.
The distributed network structure owned by blockchain technology coincides with the market-oriented structure of distributed photovoltaic energy, and has the characteristics of high efficiency, low cost, rapid response and free choice.
In the DAE community, energy can be converted into digital assets and used in a variety of scenarios: peer-to-peer, machine-to-machine, electric vehicle-to-virtual grid, green card trading, carbon trading, and virtual net electricity billing.
This ideal DAE community, like the demonstration power station at De La Salle University, can be turned into a power plant for each household and every roof, or it can be transformed into a power supply station. Thousands of distributed power sources are distributed in various places for management, and power sharing and transactions are directly realized between the households and the households through the platform.
In this mode, each roof can be used as an independent domain name or IP address, and all records of power generation, electricity, and electricity trading can be saved and formed into data blocks in a timely manner, forming a blockchain through the Internet and cloud technology. . Enterprises can continually dig out more in-depth service requirements from these massive data, thus creating other new business models.
The blockchain can record the source of electricity, so that every generation of clean energy, coal, and oil and gas can be recorded and tracked. The cost of power generation and real-time electricity prices of different energy sources can also be recorded and tracked.
Energo Labs is verifying this effect with the above demonstration power station. “The purpose of our project is to verify the completeness of our blockchain products in billing, distribution, and settlement transactions, including efficiency, speed, security, and economics of using blockchain networks.†Cheng Changsheng Say.
However, Cheng Changsheng did not disclose the effects and specific processes of using blockchain technology for accounting, distribution, and settlement transactions in this experimental demonstration project. However, he told the 1°C reporter that the cost of using the blockchain in the power station is too high. “In a note in the power station, the cost will probably cost a few dollars, and about five minutes may need to be recorded once. Account."
Regarding the high cost of accounting, Cheng Changsheng explained to reporters: First, the imbalance between supply and demand is caused. At this stage, the resources that can provide blockchain services are very limited, and the demand for blockchain technology is very high; Second, accounting requires a large amount of computer equipment hardware.
As Cheng Changsheng said, Xu Langming analyzed the 1°C reporter and said, “The blockchain needs a lot of accounting nodes to support it. Here, equipment cost and power cost are needed... On the other hand, each processing result of the blockchain All need to be confirmed by the whole network, the efficiency can be imagined is not high, for the time being, compared with the centralized platform, which causes competition on the chain users, which is also an important reason for pushing up the transaction costs on the chain. one."
From the practice of Energo Labs, the blockchain currently has the cost of billing the power station, and the demonstration project is still affordable, but it cannot be used in large-scale, high-frequency power transactions. If 100,000 users in a DAE community use peer-to-peer power trading through blockchain technology, the frequency of transactions will reach 100,000. Cheng Changsheng said: "With such a high-frequency transaction, even if the billing cost is one cent, the accumulated cost will become very high."
However, Cheng Changsheng believes that with the development of technology, the use of future blockchains in power stations will be as free as using the Internet.
Unfamiliar with each other but trust each other
“The blockchain has made the world see its magical side through the form of bitcoin. The imagination space is very large and has driven many fields to study it.†Gao Qian, director of the Iklink Technology Blockchain Application Institute, accepted The first financial 1°C reporter said in an interview.
As a company focused on new energy power investment operations and providing one-stop photovoltaic accessories, Aikang Technology joined the blockchain research a few years ago. In 2016, the company cooperated with Hunan University to establish a blockchain financial research center and a blockchain energy research center. In 2017, the company set up a full-time research institute to take the application of blockchain in the field of photovoltaics and new energy as its strategic direction.
Since 2010, China has increased its investment and subsidies for renewable energy. Strong policy support has made China the fastest growing country for photovoltaic power generation. In 2015, China has become the world's number one in terms of installed capacity of photovoltaic power generation.
However, in the existing domestic electricity trading market, power trading is mainly in the hands of state-owned power grid companies. However, with the improvement of photovoltaic panel technology, more and more households have deployed household photovoltaic power generation equipment. Except for self-sufficiency, the excess power generated has not been fully utilized. This current contradiction is a contradiction in the future.
Due to geographical and economic conditions, the mismatch between power demand and power supply is a long-standing problem.
Smart grids may solve these problems effectively, and blockchain technology is the best choice for building smart grids. Just like Cheng Changsheng's experiments, the blockchain can add distributed energy to the power system, improve the visualization and controllability of distributed energy, and make power production and consumption more precise and refined. Utilization will be more intensive and efficient.
The development of distributed generation market transactions needs to follow the principles of information equivalence, sharing, and transparency. “At this time, the blockchain is a very good solution. Upload the data of the smart meter to the blockchain to form a credible account book, and everyone can see the power generation and use of each rooftop power station. Electricity situation." Xu Minglang said.
Blockchain is a multi-party collaboration platform. If you compile the logic of your business into a piece of code, this code is a smart contract. As long as the smart contract is placed on the blockchain, its business logic can not be tampered with, and all business rules are transparent and clear, thus effectively avoiding the possibility of black-box operation, and truly open, fair and fair. in principle. In other words, the blockchain is an effective solution to solve the trust relationship in the Internet environment.
“In a community of tens of thousands of households, they may not know each other, but the blockchain network can help them build trust.†Cheng Changsheng said, “The blockchain technology can do the payment, bookkeeping, and use of the source. track."
The energy transmission supply model that the future blockchain technology wants to build will be based on distributed energy. A community itself is a distributed intelligent micro-network. A plurality of such distributed intelligent micro-networks are connected together to form a large-scale network. Each individual distributed intelligent network community, in most cases, does not need to rely on external power networks or other community power support to achieve energy supply and consumption.
"If this day comes, the mode of the grid company will be changed." Gao Qian said, "At that time, it was a completely distributed network, not a network from the west to the east."
For now, this is just a wonderful vision.
Entrepreneur confusion
The idea that “blockchain is expected to become a new direction for the future development of the photovoltaic industry†has been circulated in the domestic PV industry. People who put forward this view tried to find a new direction for the photovoltaic industry after the "531 New Deal." The so-called "531 New Deal" refers to the policy of reducing PV subsidies issued by relevant departments on May 31, 2018.
"A little sick and rushed to go to the hospital... Many people still don't understand the meaning and purpose of the blockchain, take the path as the purpose, and then rush to the horse." Claiming to be 'blockchain + energy' I should be the first in the world Cao Yu, who came out, said in an interview with the reporter.
Cao Yu is also one of the founders of the world's first energy blockchain laboratory. In 2016, they established this laboratory in Beijing. "Blockchain + energy, can you solve the problem?" He told reporters, "I personally feel that the current domestic enterprises do not make any sense, they are trying to make mistakes."
Some companies have already launched energy blockchain projects in China. For example, on February 28, 2018, the China Merchants Charity Foundation teamed up with TUV Nord, New Energy Exchange, Panda Green Energy (00686.HK) and Huawei to sign the energy blockchain project signing ceremony in Shekou, Shenzhen. The world's first community charity project to apply blockchain technology.
A few days after the project was signed, Li Weiwei, executive director and president of the New Energy Exchange, said: “At present, we are selecting the first batch of voluntarily registered users from Shekou to participate in the clean electricity virtual transaction. Users can choose to use clean energy directly on the platform. Or traditional energy."
However, when the reporter contacted the above parties on this project, it was found that Li Weiwei was not willing to make any evaluation on the progress of the project. Among them, a person from the relevant Huawei department said that the project was not led by Huawei. At the same time, Huawei technicians who participated in the project had already left Huawei, so they could not evaluate the project.
However, an insider who appeared at the signing ceremony mentioned above said that the project had not progressed since the signing ceremony. "The current technology is not yet mature," he said. "I still don't understand what a blockchain is."
Cao Yu also said that although the blockchain technology is good, it is still in a very early development state, and the technology is not mature.
In addition to technology, Cao Yu said that the blockchain is based on relatively mature and sufficient market conditions, and then decentralized. Combined with China's current actual situation, the marketization of the energy market in China has not yet been completed, so it is still too early to go to the center. “At the moment, I am not optimistic about the use of blockchain in energy,†he said. “But if it is in countries with weak energy control centers such as Thailand and the Philippines, I am optimistic.â€
This is one of the main reasons why Energo Labs chose to launch an energy blockchain project in the Philippines. “The market in Southeast Asia is relatively flexible and the center is weak.†Cheng Changsheng said.
In the exploration of the energy blockchain, the biggest difficulty faced by Cheng Changsheng is that it is difficult to bypass the grid company. For example, photovoltaics that rely on solar energy to generate electricity are inherently intermittent, that is, in the absence of the sun, photovoltaic power plants cannot generate electricity, so it is also necessary to purchase electricity through the grid company.
In addition, blockchain + energy is more important is the access of the Internet of Things, energy is a physical quantity, and physical quantity needs related data acquisition, gateway, data interface, information transmission, etc. of the Internet of Things, but this is currently It is not complete enough. For example, every household has a meter, but most of the meters are owned by the grid company. The meter data ownership is owned by the grid company, and it will not be shared with energy producers and consumers.
“The reason why the blockchain advancement is not as fast as it is imagined is that many things to do with the blockchain are revolutionary.†Cheng Changsheng said, “Because it involves the vested interests of many people, they are not willing to do the current situation. be broken."
Gao Qian and Xu Langming both told reporters that although Ikang Technology laid out the blockchain early, their ability alone could not quickly promote the development of blockchain, which requires more people of insight to join.
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