All over the world, civilians rely on utility companies to provide electricity and other power solutions. Currently, solar power is a small but promising solution to that, but the world needs to move faster. PowerLedger is a blockchain-based solution that is hoping to move us along.

 

What is PowerLedger?

PowerLedger is a blockchain application attempting to innovate in the renewable energy industry. The technology does so by facilitating peer-to-peer energy transactions on a decentralized marketplace. Both the users generating and the ones consuming energy are recorded. Generators can be a business or a user providing their excess renewable energy to the rest of the world, usually solar power. In turn, providers will be compensated with POWR tokens. The goal is to get the general public involved with renewable energy and saving the environment.

Currently, anybody with a solar panel can trade their surplus of energy over to a utility company, who then sells it to others. The problem with this is that same energy may travel back to the grid before coming back, which causes both the seller and the utility company to lose money and energy respectively. By utilizing the blockchain, PowerLedger gets rid of the third-party grid and instead lets providers sell their power to anyone close to them. Users still have the option to buy off of a utility company if they so choose, but PowerLedger provides the option of either the company or a neighbor.

The blockchain will track each unit of energy that is transacted on the network. The POWR token allows users to use the platform, and it is also rewarded to power providers who can then convert it to the other currency: Sparkz.

Users can purchase Sparkz with fiat currency, who then trade it for the network’s power. To recap: POWR is used as a sort of entry fee into the network, alongside an incentive to providers to keep offering up energy. The POWR token is then used to purchase Sparkz, which are traded for electricity on the network.

 

POWR Coin Price

As of this writing, the price of POWR is USD 0.480261 or 0.00005627 in BTC and 0.00067336 in ETH.

 

POWR ICO

Back in 2017, PowerLedger sold out of its pre-sale in three days, raising over AU$13 million for 190,000,000 Powr coins. Then, the ICO generated another AU$34 million, equivalent to 160,000,000 POWR coins. The team was also rewarded AU$8 million as a grant by the Australian government.

 

POWR Coin: How it works and its key features

The POWR token works on a proof-of-stake basis. Users will stake the POWR token to take part in the network, and then use it to purchase Sparkz to provide power. POWR is placed into a smart contract escrow system to gain access to Sparkz and is then taken out once the POWR token runs empty.

 

POWR: Use and Utilities

According to their website, PowerLedger is already established in Australia and New Zealand. There they provide not only energy for real estate, but also microtransactions. The team is working on providing charging for electric vehicles, carbon trading, and more.

 

POWR: Platform and Technology

PowerLedger is an ERC-20 token, so it runs on the Ethereum network. Because a country’s power grid needs to be able to handle a ton of transactions per second, PowerLedger is scalable up to 1,000,000. It can do so because of a Raiden technology model not unlike Bitcoin’s Lightning Network.

Raiden allows users to exchange private messages for a transfer of value. This prevents the on-chain network from getting clogged with transactions.

 

POWR: Coin Competitors

PowerLedger has two competitors: SunContract (SNC) and Gridcoin (GRC). Both of these platforms focus on volunteer-based energy distribution on the blockchain. That said, PowerLedger is the only project with any headway. The other two are still working on building their platforms or are in the very early stages.

As mentioned previously, PowerLedger is already working with countries like Australia and New Zealand.

 

POWR: Team and Founders

PowerLedger has quite the extensive team on board, but a few key members make the whole project happen.

Dr. Jemma Green is co-founder and chair of the company. She has over 15 years in the finance industry and has worked 11 years in investment banking in London. Dr. Green also received a Masters degree from Cambridge University alongside two additional diplomas after graduating.

David Martin commercializes and operates the PowerLedger technology. Martin has worked in the electricity industry for close to 20 years. He also spent six years consulting others on the regulation of electricity distribution.

The third and final co-founder, John Bulich, plans out the future of PowerLedger. He directs concepts and creates designs for the project, alongside being a leader on the technical side. Bulich has experience in the cryptocurrency industry after co-founding Ledger Assets — a blockchain development company creating technology for blockchain based products.

 

POWR: Wallets

POWR is an ERC-20 token. This means it is compatible with all Ethereum wallets including Ledger, Trezor, MyEtherWallet, and more.

 

Can you mine POWR coin?

POWR is a proof-of-stake token. Blocks are forged by those who have investments into the network. The idea is that investors are more inclined to see the platform be successful since they have money thrown in. Only proof-of-work tokens are mined. Proof-of-stake tokens are usually pre-mined.

 

POWR: Roadmap

Late last year, PowerLedger began to focus on app development. The team has since placed a few applications in beta testing. Now they are focusing on “Asset Germination Events” which is when token holders can choose to be co-owners of future renewable assets. Then, more applications will be placed into beta testing before the Power Ledger team moves over to a public blockchain in 2019.

 

POWR: Community

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PowerLedger_io (84.6k followers)

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/PowerLedger/ (13,156 subscribers)

Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/Gop-90DIMiPF7N_EtvFzjA

The PowerLedger team are constantly tweeting updates and relevant news on their feeds. This project has a large follower base, so each tweet sees a good amount of interaction. Otherwise, the community is quite frequent on the Subreddit, though the team doesn’t seem to spend much time there.

 

How to buy POWR

POWR is currently available on a few exchanges. The most popular are Binance, Bittrex, and Changelly.

 

POWR: Review

PowerLedger is a somewhat unique project. There aren’t any other blockchain projects quite like it. Universal power is a fantastic idea, and it stays true to the blockchain principle of removing third-parties and placing control back in the hands of the users. That said, PowerLedger also provides a way for these third-parties to get involved and stay relevant, without giving them all of the control. The team has built up a large following, so there is a ton of interest in the project as well.

That said, PowerLedger is extremely ambitious. In a way, it is trying to remove the reliance on third-party providers while also including them in the solution. These companies may not be on board with this, as users are much more likely to work and provide for their community members instead of for a utility company.

 

POWR: Final thoughts

What puts PowerLedger above other blockchain projects is that part of its technology is already in use. As mentioned above, the idea is already being implemented in Australia and New Zealand, with more countries planned. Plus, with the goal of providing electric vehicle charging and more, PowerLedger has a bright future ahead of it.