Blockchain crosses over to the energy industry. Can cryptocurrency speculators still have fun?

On October 24, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held its 18th collective study session. The development status and trends of blockchain technology became the theme of the study, which aroused widespread global attention to the technology.

As if overnight, the blockchain industry has ushered in spring, so what exactly is blockchain? And how is it related to the energy industry?

The blockchain, which seems very cool and cutting-edge, can actually be explained as follows: a new credit mechanism is formed based on the Internet's distributed technology.

As we all know, the credit mechanism and insurance mechanism of traditional banks are based on large-scale industry and finance. Take energy as an example. No bank or financial institution guarantees the photovoltaic power generation transactions between a few households. The birth of energy blockchain intends to fill this gap in the financial service system - providing services for the development of distributed energy through a new contract mechanism.

From this point of view, the biggest core value and breakthrough difficulty of blockchain is the establishment of a credit mechanism. It is not just an algorithm. The key is how to gain everyone's trust - through financial innovation, it can be recognized by financial service institutions and the industry. Some people hope to build a trading system through carbon coins and other "coins" to replace the bank's credit system.

From the perspective of application areas, energy mainly meets two types of human needs:

First, large-scale and wide-ranging consumer demand, such as urban energy supply, must be supplied by a large energy system. This part cannot be met by a small blockchain and requires a large "blockchain" to complete. This is long-distance energy transmission, such as the hydropower from Pubugou to Shanghai, and the wind power from Inner Mongolia to Beijing.

The second is the need to show off one's individuality and be unique, which can be met through distributed energy + blockchain. Correspondingly, from a technical perspective, the energy network system is also developing in two directions. One is an increasingly complex and huge energy system. For example, the large power grid has developed from the municipal level to the provincial level, then to the regional power grid, the national network, the intercontinental network, and finally to the global network; the other is that the distributed energy system solves the individual needs of nearby consumption. Small energy blockchains have become another attribute of the huge energy system.

Although energy blockchain can solve the problem of distributed energy development, the reality in my country is that we have a lot of distributed renewable energy and are facing some problems with absorption and efficient development. For example, if my home has solar energy installed and your home doesn’t, how can I give you the excess electricity I have?

If the energy blockchain establishes a trading system by improving mechanisms and credit, allowing some things that cannot be bought and sold to be bought and sold, and things that cannot be consumed to be consumed, it will create new market demand and bring in many potential customers. Although this is a small mechanism, it solves the big problem of distributed energy development.

The solution is to use the characteristics of blockchain, which is flexible, open, non-standardized and decentralized, to set up a transaction mechanism through Internet technology, connect stakeholders from all aspects, such as energy storage battery manufacturers, securities banks, distributed power generation and electricity sales, and find a mutually recognized way of cooperation for collaborative innovation. It is equivalent to a mobile phone that only provides a high-performance platform and underlying system, and provides rich APIs and interfaces for different developers, so that all parties in the industrial chain can rely on this platform to quickly develop various applications.