Energy demand is rising worldwide and especially in Asia, the search for environmental friendly and low-cost energy solutions to drive the world economy is constantly growing. Over recent years, many countries in Asia have been on track to deregulate their energy market, mainly to lower prices and to reduce pollution by allowing competition.
Electrify.SG is the first energy marketplace in Singapore, launched in July 2017, and so far, it has managed to attract most of the country’s retailers to its platform and to transact around 3.7M USD worth of electricity between retailers and consumers (Businesses). Electrify is able to lower the electricity cost for businesses by 20-30%, by advising them on the best electricity plan for them, based mainly on electricity consumption patterns.
Electrify.Asia is a project by Electrify.SG founders, they will transform its existing marketplace into Marketplace 2.0. Businesses and also family households will enjoy the open electricity marketplace and be in a position to lower their electricity cost. Using smart contracts, Ewallet, and existing smart meters the cost for a consumer to have a contract with any retailer online (peer to peer) will be feasible.
In April 2018, Singapore is to start its open electricity market pilot in Jurong, and later it will be rolled out to the rest of Singapore completing by the end of the year. Electrify.Asia should be in a good position by then, as the first and only energy market place in Singapore.
Electrify.Asia won 1st place at BlockShow Asia 2017 and recently announced a tight partnership with one of the most successful and innovative projects in the crypto sphere- OmiseGo. Omise’s technology will be used to facilitate fast, highly scalable, and low-cost transactions on-top of Electrify’s E-wallet.
This article was first published on: Jan 28, 2018
Julius Tan and Martin Lim are the founders of Electrify. SG. Julius spent the past three years in the Singapore energy market, as a Research Engineer at the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (an institute at the National University of Singapore), thereafter moving on as an energy trader and Head of the Energy department at a clean energy retailer in Singapore, Sunseap.
He holds an MA and a BA in Mechanical engineering from the University of Cambridge.
Martin Lim: Founder, Chief Operations Officer
Martin has over 20 years of experience in the mass communications industry, having served as both a creative and strategic lead for a diverse range of clients. Co-founded a company to develop water treatment systems for disaster relief. As the main business driver for this business, and other clients, he led all strategic areas including planning, business development, and consolidation.
Jun Hasegawa: OmiseGo founder
Jun is the full-time CEO of Omise, a multinational payments company currently present in Thailand (HQ), Japan, Singapore, and Indonesia and that has raised over 50M USD in funding (Equity and ICO). He has led the company through dramatic growth, from its launch in 2013 to its establishment as one of Southeast Asia’s leading online payment platforms. OmiseGo token market cap is currently valued at ~1.5B USD.
Dazhi Yang: Dazhi Yang received his B.Eng., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the National University of Singapore in 2009, 2012 and 2015 respectively. He is currently a research fellow with the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology. His research interests include forecasting and spatiotemporal statistics.
All team members and advisors are listed on the Electrify.Asia website
Energy demand is predicted to almost double in the Asia and Pacific region by 2030. It is therefore imperative that innovative ways of generating power in a socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable manner are uncovered.
Countries across Asia such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Singapore have opted for market deregulation in a bid to create sustainability.
This means that in the near future, there will be many energy suppliers and retailers offering energy contracts to consumers, which should make the energy market more efficient and innovative.
Following Japan, Singapore is expected to fully deregulate its energy market starting in April 2018. By the end of 2018, Singapore is expected to have fully deregulated its energy market and to allow any household to choose to consume energy from any energy retailer.
The way peers are able to trade energy with each other in Singapore is based on the national electricity grid. The power produced by any entity is transferred to the main grid and sold to retailers at constantly updated wholesale prices. Retailers then make contracts with any entity seeking to consume electricity.
For an in-depth infographic of the open electricity market of Singapore, click here
Electrify.SG, a new startup based in Singapore, launched its energy marketplace in July 2017. It connects energy retailers (suppliers) and businesses (consumers). It is currently the only energy marketplace in Singapore.
Since its launch, it’s managed to attract a gross merchandise volume of over 3.7M USD and has transacted more than 30 GWh of electricity for business. Most of Singapore’s energy retailers are listed on the marketplace.
Electrify.SG aims to accept households to its marketplace, once the electricity market deregulates, starting from April 2018.
Once Marketplace 2.0 launches, small consumers will be able to join the platform and to choose to consume their energy from any retailer listed. Many consumers will be able to have contracts with many energy retailers simultaneously.
By using blockchain technology, the cost for a retailer to set-up a contract with a small consumer will be dramatically lower than existing solutions and will make this type of contract feasible.
Marketplace 2.0 will serve as the main consumer interface (web + mobile).
Synergy, planned to launch in Q4 2018, will allow any (small electricity producer) to sell its surplus energy to any consumer. For instance, one will be able to install solar panels on his rooftop and to sell the electricity produced directly to a consumer, without a middle-man via the Electrify marketplace.
As the electricity is traded via the main electricity grid, precise tracking of the energy produced and added to the main electricity grid is needed (To prevent overconsumption).
By the end of 2018, consumers, prosumers, and retailers will all be able to set-up contracts with each other online. The electricity flow between all parties will be based on top of the existing national power grid lines. There will be no need to set up new electricity lines infrastructure.
The date is the 15th of May, 2018. Luckily, Pu lives in the Jurong region of Singapore and is able to join the open electricity market pilot by the Singaporean government.
Pu chooses to set-up a contract with an energy retailer via the Electrify.Asia Market place. The following is what needs to be done in order for him to start consuming energy from suppliers listed on the marketplace.
Smart contracts will be used as a means of entering an electricity contract between two parties, secured on the blockchain.
Distributed ledger technology will allow every participant to have an identical copy of their contract details, monthly or periodic energy usage, settlement details and energy fees.
Blockchain technology ensures that all market participants can transact in a trust-less manner, reducing time and cost of contract monitoring.
All payments will be made through Electrify’s eWallet from the consumer to the retailer. The underlying technology will compromise a decentralized value exchange feature that allows consumers to pay for their power in both fiat and tokens. It’s expected that the transaction volume will be extremely high and a scalable solution is needed. Electrify.Asia partnered with OmiseGo to use its technology for a highly scalable and low-cost solution.
Electrify will develop an SDK layer for electricity retailers to develop and customize their own retail electricity plans that can be offered to consumers on Marketplace 2.0. The SDKs will act as a rating engine, as well as payment terms to generate a bill for the consumers.
The SDK allows any individual or an organization to set up a retailer business and to provide power to any consumer, with minimal barriers to entry.
Energy consumers will be able to subscribe to a service that will employ artificial intelligence to recommend the most suitable energy plan and provider. The AI will take into account the consumer’s parameters and preferences, such as the highest percentage of clean energy, lowest price, best customer service, contract length, and usage patterns, etc. The AI engine will take inputs from available P2P contracts (via Synergy) and retail electricity plans to provide an optimal recommendation for the user.
The Powerpod will mainly be used by prosumers. It will record and log onto the blockchain the amount of energy produced and added to the main electricity grid. It is necessary to avoid overconsumption of electricity (Happens when consumption is greater than production).
Energy producers participating in the marketplace are required to own ELEC tokens in order to offer electricity plans to consumers, as followed:
Small energy producers: 200 ELEC (~16USD @ ICO price) per 1kWp of rated generation capacity
Electricity retailers: at least 10,000 ELEC (~800USD @ ICO price)
Network fees which include the use of the Omisego platform and the Ethereum blockchain is estimated for less than 1% of transaction volume and will be paid exclusively via ELEC tokens
Payment for services beyond the standard marketplace such as auto-switching (to the best energy offers), will be paid by consumers in ELEC.
A tiered reward system will allow consumers to receive greater loyalty rewards based on length of usage (months) and amount of ELEC owned.
Project Feasibility
The new marketplace will integrate into the existing and growing platform Electrify.SG. The team has vast experience and connections in Singapore’s energy industry and has successfully attracted most of the county’s energy retailers to its platform. The penetration into the market will be easier via their existing and successful business and it seems like they are in a great position to accept households to their platform once the electricity market in Singapore fully deregulates.
Based on Main national electricity Grid
In order to connect consumers and prosumers to the platform, one does not have to change the existing electricity grid. This is unlike many other peer to peer energy trading solutions based on a new electric microgrid setup. In Electrify, the connection can be done online. A smart meter will be set up in households of countries that don’t yet have smart meters (an electric meter that can be monitored from a distance).
Strong partnership with OmiseGO
Electrify will use OmiseGO’s technology for a low cost and high volume transaction solution. OmiseGO is a highly respected project in the crypto industry. Its decision to pilot their technology with Electrify.Asia gives the project great credibility, and a great head start into the crypto sphere.
Fair ICO terms
Electrify is looking to raise 30M USD, 20M USD is already committed to buying strong strategic partners worldwide. No bonus was given and half of the private allocation is locked for 3 months on investments of more than 300k USD. 10M USD will be evenly distributed between whitelist members.
Reasonable hard cap, no bonus to early contributors and a lockup of around 5-10M USD (private allocation) should protect the initial price of ELEC from going below the ICO price.
High Transaction Volume needed for Token Price to Rise
For the ELEC token to rise in price greatly and receive its value from real use, the marketplace needs to host a large volume of monthly transactions. Though the project has a head start with an existing marketplace, it has a long way to go in order for the ELEC token to rise in value from its ICO price, if speculation is not taken into consideration.
Key for the evaluation: IF = Impact Factor WA = Weighted Average
Team & Advisory board: Broad experience and knowledge in necessary fields. Built a successful startup, partnered with major electricity retailers in Singapore and Japan (TBA). Score 9 IF 5 WA 1.72
Stage of the project: Beta launch – Q3 2018, enabling households to set-up contracts directly with retailers via smart contracts. Score 9 IF 1 WA 1.72
Project potential: Exponential growth potential, enabling peer to peer electricity trading on top of the main electricity grid. Extremely good penetration into Singapore. Score 9 IF 3 WA 1.29
Community and Media: 1 month before the ICO: ~4,100 Telegram members, ~500 Facebook followers, ~1,700 Twitter followers. Score 8 IF 2 WA 0.73
Token use: ELEC will be used by consumers to pay platform fees (<1%), and by retailers and prosumers to use the platform (staking) Score 8.5 IF 3 WA 1.29
ICO Terms: Cap – 30 M USD: 20M via private sale (0% Bonus, ½ locked for 3 months on investments above 300k USD), 10M via public sale (equal max cap to all approved whitelist members) Score 9 IF 5 WA 1.7
Whitepaper: Detailed, lack of user-flow explanation. Score 7 IF 1 WA 0.43
Backend and Technology: A good use case for Ethereum smart contracts. AI algorithm used to match electricity supplier and consumer, OmiseGo e-wallet partnership. Score 9 IF 2 WA 0.72
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