About

Grid+ is building a blockchain based trading platform for energy with the aim of providing renewable electricity to consumers.

History

Grid+ is attempting to build a combination of hardware and software technologies focused on providing more efficient electrical power to consumers. The project was founded as a spoke of ConsenSys and is focused on deregulated energy markets in the U.S. Deregulated energy markets allow for the generation, transmission, distribution, and retailing of electricity to be offered by separate entities. Grid+ plans to sell electricity as a retailer in these markets.

The team believes that through a combination of smart devices, blockchain based automatic payments, and peer-to-peer energy trading they can solve perceived issues with the current energy marketplace. This includes high fixed costs for retailers, unpaid bills (bad debts), and non-dynamic billing that ultimately increase the prices paid by consumers for electricity. In the future Grid+ network it is proposed that devices will be able to create dynamic markets where surplus energy can be sold to offset the cost of purchasing it at an individual’s peak times.

Grid+ plans to initially purchase wholesale energy and sell it directly to consumers that have established Grid+ accounts. This can help reduce costs for consumers by creating a direct relationship between the company and users with payments made in real time through the Ethereum blockchain. Ultimately, the project aims to allow individuals to create, consume and trade their own energy through at home renewable energy sources, like solar panels, and battery storage. This goal assumes that consumers will have access to electricity at dynamic prices and that the data needed to compute real time consumption and distribution costs will be available through smart meters at each node in the grid. These data are expected to allow smart machines to make smart decisions about when to buy/sell electricity.