Power Ledger (POWR) is an Australian company, and Australia’s first ICO, with it’s eyes on decentralizing the renewable energy market.  By placing this market into the users’ hands, token holders will be able to buy and sell unused renewable energy on their own accord using Ethereum blockchain technology to record usage and consumption.

With more and more homes, businesses and industries moving to solar power, could Power Ledger become an investor’s dream?

Power Ledger: Project Overview

Token holders can sell surplus renewable energy they generate in the comfort of their own home or office.  The privately generated energy can be transmitted through existing micro-grids or electricity distribution networks.

This initiative empowers consumers by enabling them to manage the energy economy, a win-win in today’s world and something that many never really pay attention to.  These utilities can facilitate trading and consumers receive payments in real-time in a trustless, automated, highly secure environment.

Buyers have the opportunity to select only clean energy sources as they trade with other consumers, including Jim and Nancy from next door. All parties leverage transparency benefits associated with the blockchain technology. All transactions, amounts of energy generated and consumption are all recorded on the blockchain.  This means settlement costs are significantly low, which translates to higher returns for power consumers who invest in renewable energy. Power Ledger’s platform manages the risk of non-supply of deliverables thereby promoting user confidence.

Some of the applications available on the platform allow power metering, grid management, acquisition of data and rapid micro transactions. All grid management functions are handled at granular scale.

Key Applications for Power Ledger

Power Ledger features some interesting applications to benefit different segments renewable of energy generation.  From electric vehicle charging and carbon trading to market price management, their platform can do all the heavy lifting for you.

Here’s a quick run down:

• • Wholesale market settlement – the Power Ledger platform offers a wide variety of features, apps and capabilities for wholesale energy marketplaces. These include data aggregation, settlement and reconciliation. In addition, it provides transparent dispatch optimization and management features. All transactions are processed rapidly at an affordable rate.

• • Autonomous Asset Management – Users can take advantage of autonomous asset management (AA) capabilities. The platform can handle shared ownership of energy assets and the trading of the assets. This AA application is designed to support the buying and selling of renewable energy in addition to the distribution of the POWR cryptocurrency into assigned addresses.

• • Distributed Market Management – This hands off application provides the capacity to handle network load balancing, optimized metering data, assets dispatch, data collection and rapid transaction settlement automatically.  No more spreadsheets needed.

• • Electric Vehicles – The electric vehicles platform app uses the Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP) to handle various functions. These include user identification, generating real-time metering data, transaction settlement and data collection.

• • Power Port – This application is designed to support assets linked to the provision of mobile storage discharge facilities. These are aimed at maintaining a constant supply of energy to consumers.

• • Carbon Trading App – Carbon trading is one of the EU’s largest moves to slow down down climate change.  This app offers smart contracts to anyone wishing to engage in carbon trading. The contracts provide assurance for all digital transactions, transparency and credibility of assets. Users can take advantage auditing the transactions. The application allows carbon traders to submit credits and certificates to regulatory authorities. You can also learn about other applications supporting Power Ledger.

POWR Tokens

The Power Ledger grants users access permission to applications and peer-to-peer trading features using POWR tokens. Outside of trading, these tokens have a real world use. The host of an application is required to acquire sufficient tokens to enable consumers to buy and sell renewable energy in their home market. For this reason, it’s imperative to make an effort to maintain sufficient tokens to keep their consumer base trading.

Transactions take place in a deregulated market without the involvement of intermediaries. This is by far one of the benefits of blockchain technology and the use of cryptocurrencies. Consumers are allowed to convert tokens to Sparkz without the assistance of an application host. The transactions can be conducted from a user’s local jurisdiction.

POWR tokens are valid anywhere around the world, thus enabling a wider participation on the energy-focused platform.

The POWR token acts similarly to a software license by granting access to the platform and its wide variety of features and apps and are what most traders will be familiar with.

Smart Bonds and Sparkz

Users in possession of the POWR tokens automatically gain access to the smart bond functionalities. Application hosts are given tokens from the growth pool as an incentive to contribute to the increased use and development of apps. They are also expected to invite more consumers and thus help expand participation across the globe. All tokens can be held as surety for Sparkz.

The tokens are kept in an Ethereum smart bond escrow designed specifically for Sparkz. Sparkz is the internal currency for Power Ledger used to actually purchase and sell energy on their platform.  Users can unlock the smart bond by simply returning the Sparkz. Organic demand of the tokens is expected to rise as a result of an increase in the number of tokens in escrow. Consumers are protected from exposure to risk associated with the failure of an application host provided through the smart bond contract.

The Team Behind Power Ledger

Power Ledger’s team is remarkable.  Co-founded by Dr. Jemma Green, David Martin, John Bulich and Dr. Govert Van Ek, their team has years of experience in risk management,

renewable and sustainable energy and blockchain technology development.

Dr. Jemma Green primarily serves as the face of the company and holds a two postgraduate diplomas and a Masters Degree from Cambridge University.

The founders of the project hope POWR tokens will play a key role in facilitating an increase in green energy production initiatives. As a result, the platform elevates sustainability around the world. Power Ledger allows participants to donate small portions of their transactions to organizations involved in the development of sustainable energy generation projects.

It’s also worth mentioning Bill Tai recently joined their advisory board. A venture capitalist since 1991, Bill Tai has served on the advisory boards of 7 publicly listed companies where he joined in the initial stages and helped guide the companies to where they are today.

Learn more about The Power Ledger team here: https://powerledger.io/#team

Plug in with POWR

Power Ledger is highly active on social media, regularly participates in Q&A and engages with their community.  Stay on track with their updates and development through the following channels:

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/powerledger
Telegram – https://t.me/joinchat/Gop-90DIMiPF7N_EtvFzjA
Twitter – https://twitter.com/PowerLedger_io
Reddit – https://www.reddit.com/r/PowerLedger/

Our Thoughts on Power Ledger

As Australia’s first ICO, Power Ledger raised $34 Million in it’s initial coin offering.  Being “first to the market” brings additional eyes on their company and is great news for investors.  Just last week they were listed Bittrex which made a healthy amount of traders eager to purchase cheap tokens.

At CoinReviews.io, we’re eager to see how 2018 unfolds for them, and personally, I’m actually happy to see someone taking on the energy market with a real world application.

Disclosure: Author of this post holds $POWR tokens at the time this review was published.