Last Friday I arranged time to attend Blockchain for energy transition, a meetup organized by Barcelona Bitcoin Community in the FabLab Barcelona.
I lived an exceptional experience.
In the after hours, with my beer, I was an exceptional spectator of a talk between Mihail Mihaylov and Francois Sonnet.
Mihail explaining that a NRGCOIN is minted when 1KW is injected in the smart grid. It is injected only if production is bigger than demand at the household level.
By the other side, Francois explained that a Solarcoin is minted when 1 MWh of solar energy is produced.
My understanding is that Solarcoin can become a secondary source of income for the house owner. It is true that about 0,1€ per MWh it is not a great income, but the business model exists and is growing.
The meet up
I congratulate the organization for good selection of speakers.
Mihail Mihaylov explained the NRGcoin concept, a decentralized mechanism for rewarding renewable energy, based on blockchain technology
They built a proof-of-concept prototype and have plans to implement a test at household level in September.
Alex Sicart demoed Sharge, a platform that allows you to share your charging station with electric car users, using blockchain technology. He looks for a quick increase of EV charge points.
Simone Accornero: Demoed Open Energy Monitor smart meter synchronized with a smartcontract. Datalogger/smartmeter has a cost value of 11Eur.
What we are waiting for?
That is my main question. How it is possible that such level of innovation is nowadays available and ready to use and the common sentence of all three speakers was that the main brake to growth in Spain is the current legal framework.
It is our obligation to spread the voice, to share our knowledge, to create awareness, to tell to the non-tech-world, to the non-related-energy-business-world that energy transition is already here, at arm’s length, to put in practice a “permission-less innovation”.
We cannot wait for governments or utilities. If we wait we won´t move.
A senior manager of one of the backbone companies of Spanish energy market was seated to my right.
- -He murmured “We are death.”.
- -Shocked, I glared him and asked “¿Why your company does not leaders these initiatives?”
- -“Our CEO only wants to repeat what it is safe for him”, he replied.
- – “OK, but one day will come that nothing to repeat will remain.”
Addendum: Some days later I listened a similar argument related to CEO’s attitude in a talk about desing banking