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THE ELONCITY MODEL 1


RISK FACTORS AND DISCLAIMER STATEMENT Please read this Risk Factors and Disclaimer Statement (the “Statement”) carefully before proceeding to read this Whitepaper document issued by AI GRID FOUNDATION LTD (the “Foundation”) on Eloncity Model. This Statement applies to all persons who read this document and who may purchase, use, sell and/or hold the Eloncity Token (the “ECT”). Please note this Statement may be altered or updated.

IMPORTANT NOTE: AS NOTED ELSEWHERE IN THESE TERMS, ECT IS NOT BEING STRUCTURED OR SOLD AS SECURITIES OR ANY OTHER FORM OF INVESTMENT PRODUCT. ACCORDINGLY, NONE OF THE INFORMATION PRESENTED IN THIS STATEMENT IS INTENDED TO FORM THE BASIS FOR ANY INVESTMENT DECISION, AND NO SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS ARE MADE OR INTENDED. THE FOUNDATION EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL LOSS OR DAMAGE OF ANY KIND WHATSOEVER ARISING DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY FROM: (I) RELIANCE ON ANY INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS STATEMENT; (II) ANY ERROR, OMISSION OR INACCURACY IN ANY SUCH INFORMATION; (Ill) ANY ACTION RESULTING FROM SUCH INFORMATION OR (IV) THE SALE OR USE OF ECT.

By purchasing, holding and using ECT, you expressly acknowledge that you understand and assume the following risks:

1. Risks Associated with the related Blockchain

Because ECT, the Eloncity Protocol (ECTP), and the Eloncity Network are based on blockchain technology, any malfunction, breakdown or abandonment of the relevant blockchain may have a material adverse effect on the Eloncity Network, the ECTP or ECT. Moreover, advances in cryptography, or technical advances such as the development of quantum computing, could present risks to ECT, the ECTP, and the Eloncity Network by rendering ineffective the cryptographic consensus mechanism that underpins the relevant blockchain.

2. Risk of Losing Access to ECT Due to Loss of Private Key(s)

A private key, or a combination of private keys, is necessary to control and dispose of ECT stored in your digital wallet, vault or other storage mechanisms. Accordingly, loss of requisite private key(s) associated with your digital wallet, vault or other storage mechanism storing ECT may result in loss of such ECT. Moreover, any third party that gains access to such private key(s), including by gaining access to login credentials of a hosted wallet service you use, may be able to misappropriate your ECT. We cannot be responsible for any such losses.

3. Risk of Hacking and Security Weaknesses

Hackers or other malicious groups or organizations may attempt to interfere with the Eloncity Network or ECT in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to, malware attacks, denial of service attacks, consensus-based attacks, Sybil attacks, smurfing and spoofing. Furthermore, ECT will be “ERC-20” tokens on Ethereum and Ethereum rests on open-source software and is an unlicensed distributed ledger, and there is a risk that a third party or a member of the Foundation may intentionally or unintentionally introduce weaknesses into the core infrastructure of the Eloncity Network, which could negatively affect the Eloncity Network and ECT.

4. Risk of Uninsured Losses

Unlike bank accounts or accounts at some other financial institutions, ECT is uninsured unless you specifically obtain private insurance to insure them. Thus, in the event of loss or loss of utility value, there is no public insurer or private insurance arranged by us to provide recourse in any event. We are not obliged to compensate or insure you for any event of loss or loss of utility value.


5. Risks Associated with Uncertain Regulations and Enforcement Actions

The regulatory status of ECT and distributed ledger technology is unclear or unsettled in many jurisdictions. It is difficult to predict how or whether regulatory agencies may apply existing regulation with respect to such technology and its applications, including the Eloncity Network and ECT. It is likewise difficult to predict how or whether legislatures or regulatory agencies may implement changes to law and regulation affecting distributed ledger technology and its applications, including the Eloncity Network and ECT. Regulatory actions could negatively impact the Eloncity Network and ECT in various ways, including, for purposes of illustration only, through a determination that ECT is a regulated financial instrument that requires registration or licensing.

Additionally, it is difficult to predict how the energy market may develop. The law and regulation in a jurisdiction are subject to change, which will have an impact on whether the energy market is rendered a deregulated one or a fully regulated one.

The Foundation may, therefore, cease operations in a jurisdiction in the event that regulatory actions, or changes to law or regulation, make it illegal to operate in such jurisdiction, or commercially undesirable to obtain the necessary regulatory approval(s) to operate in such jurisdiction.

6. Risks Arising from Taxation

The tax characterization of ECT is uncertain. You must seek your own tax advice in connection with purchasing, holding and utilizing ECT, which may result in adverse tax consequences to you, including, without limitation, withholding taxes, transfer taxes, value added taxes, income taxes and similar taxes, levies, duties or other charges and tax reporting requirements.

7. Risk of Alternative Networks / Competitors

It is possible that alternative networks could be established in an attempt to facilitate services that are similar to the services, or alternative networks could be established that utilize the same or similar code and protocol underlying ECT, the Eloncity Network. The Eloncity Network may compete with these alternative networks, which could negatively impact the Eloncity Network and ECT.

8. Risk of Insufficient Interest in the Eloncity Network or Distributed Applications

It is possible that the Eloncity Network will not be used by a large number of individuals, companies and other entities or that there will be limited public interest in the creation and development of distributed systems (such as the Eloncity Network) more generally. Such lack of use or interest could negatively impact the development of the Eloncity Network and therefore the potential utility of ECT.

9. Risks Associated with the Development and Maintenance of the Eloncity Network

The Eloncity Network is still under development and may undergo significant changes over time. Although it is intended for ECT and the Eloncity Network to follow the specifications set forth in this document, and the Foundation will endeavor to work towards those ends (subject to internal business considerations), changes may be required to be made to the specifications of ECT or the Eloncity Network for any number of reasons. This could create the risk that ECT or the Eloncity Network, as further developed and maintained, may not meet your expectations at the time of purchase. Furthermore, despite our good faith efforts to develop and maintain the Eloncity Network, it is still possible that the Eloncity Network will experience malfunctions or otherwise fail to be adequately developed or maintained, which may negatively impact the Eloncity Network and ECT.

10. Risk of an Unfavorable Fluctuation of Currency Value

The Foundation intends to use the proceeds from selling ECT to fund the maintenance and development of the


Eloncity Network. The proceeds of the sale of ECT will be mainly denominated in ETH and possibly other digital assets and may be converted into other cryptographic and fiat currencies. In addition, some contributions (as the case may be) of ECT may also be denominated in fiat currencies. If the value of digital assets fluctuates unfavorably during or after the contributions, the Foundation may not be able to fund development, or may not be able to maintain the Eloncity Network in the manner that is intended.

11. Risk of Dissolution of the Foundation

It is possible that, due to any number of reasons, including, but not limited to, an unfavorable fluctuation in the value of cryptographic and fiat currencies, decrease in the utility of ECT due to negative adoption of the Eloncity Network, the failure of commercial relationships, or intellectual property ownership challenges, the Eloncity Network may no longer be viable to operate and the Foundation may be dissolved.

12. Risks Arising from Lack of Governance Rights

Because ECT confers no governance rights of any kind with respect to the Eloncity Network, the Foundation, all decisions involving the Eloncity Network, or the Foundation will be made by the Foundation at its sole and absolute discretion, including, but not limited to, decisions to discontinue the Eloncity Network, to create and sell more ECT for use in the Eloncity Network, or to sell or liquidate the Foundation. These decisions could adversely affect the Eloncity Network and ECT you hold.

13. Risks Involving Cloud Storage

As the Eloncity Network may provide a decentralized cloud storage service to individual and institutional clients, including users and applications, the services are susceptible to a number of risks related to the storage of data in the cloud. The services may involve the storage of large amounts of sensitive and/or proprietary information, which may be compromised in the event of a cyber-attack or other malicious activity.

Similarly, the services may be interrupted, and files may become temporarily unavailable in the event of such an attack or malicious activity. Because users can use a variety of hardware and software that may interface with the Eloncity Network, there is the risk that the services may become unavailable or interrupted based on a failure of interoperability or an inability to integrate these third-party systems and devices that the Foundation does not control. The risk that the services may face increasing interruptions and the Eloncity Network may face additional security vulnerabilities could adversely affect the Eloncity Network and therefore the future utility of any ECT that you hold.

14. Risks Associated with Markets for ECT

There is no prior market for ECT and the ECT token distribution may not result in an active or liquid market for ECT. ECT is designed to be used solely within the Eloncity Network, hence there may be illiquidity risk with respect to the ECT you hold. ECT is not a currency issued by any central bank or national, supranational or quasi-national organization, nor does any hard assets or other credit back it nor is it a “commodity” in the usual and traditional sense of that word. We are not responsible for the circulation and exchange of ECT on any market. Exchange of ECT will merely depend on the consensus on its value between the relevant market participants. No one is obliged to purchase any ECT from any holder of ECT, including the purchasers, nor does anyone guarantee the liquidity or market price of ECT to any extent at any time. Furthermore, ECT may not be resolved to a purchaser who is a citizen, national, resident (tax or otherwise), domiciliary or green card holder of a Restricted Country or to purchasers where the purchase of ECT may be in violation of applicable laws. Accordingly, we cannot ensure that there will be any demand or market for ECT, or that the price you pay for ECT is indicative of any market valuation or market price for ECT.


Even if the secondary exchange of ECT is facilitated by third-party exchanges, such exchanges may be relatively new and subject to little or no regulatory oversight, making them more susceptible to fraud or manipulation. Furthermore, to the extent that third parties do ascribe an external exchange value to ECT (e.g., as denominated in a digital or fiat currency), such value may be extremely volatile, decline below the price, which you have paid for ECT, and/or diminish to zero.

15. Loss of Talent

The development of the Eloncity Network depends on the continued cooperation of the existing technical team and expert consultants, who are highly knowledgeable and experienced in their respective sectors. The loss of any member may adversely affect the Eloncity Network or its future development.

16. Failure to Develop

The Eloncity Network is still in the developmental stage; hence there may be substantive changes to the final design before the official version is released. There is the risk that the development of the network and/or ECTP might not be executed or implemented as planned or may not meet any expectation of purchasers of ECT, for a variety of reasons, including without limitation the event of a decline in the prices of any digital asset, virtual token or ECT, unforeseen technical difficulties, and shortage of development funds for activities.

17. Competition and Anti-Money Laundering

The purchase or holding of ECT may be subject to competition, anti-money laundering, counter-terrorism financing or other regulatory requirements in certain jurisdictions. You shall refrain from purchasing any ECT until professional advice is sought and any queries are answered to your satisfaction.

18. Unanticipated Risks

Cryptographic tokens such as ECT are a new and untested technology. In addition to the aforementioned risks, there may be other risks associated with your purchase, holding and use of ECT, including those that the Foundation cannot anticipate. Such risks may further materialize as unanticipated variations or combinations of the risks discussed in this Statement.


INTRODUCTION

PURPOSE

The purpose of this document is to provide a high-level technical overview of the Eloncity Model for decentralized renewable energy projects. It assumes that the reader has a basic understanding of cloud computing, energy industry, decentralized applications, blockchain technology, crypto utility token, project financing, community development, energy regulatory and policy. A list of resources is provided for those who would like to develop a foundational understanding of blockchain technology and crypto utility token.

SCOPE

This document provides an overview of the Eloncity Model, a community-based decentralized renewable energy platform powered by blockchain ecosystem for building and deploying decentralized energy resources. It describes fundamental problems that the Eloncity Model seeks to address, key building blocks of the Eloncity solutions, target markets, and an implementation roadmap for realizing the Eloncity vision.

The information in this document is intended for informational purposes only. Eloncity may make improvements or changes to the products, architectural design, or programs described in this document at any time without notice.

RELATED DOCUMENTS

Eloncity Website https://eloncity.io


TABLE OF CONTENTS

OVERVIEW ....................................................................................................................................................10

Problems of Modern Centralized Power Grid ...................................................................................................... 10

The Solution - The Eloncity Model .......................................................................................................................... 11

Eloncity’s Advantages ........................................................................................................................................ 14

Eloncity’s Target Markets .................................................................................................................................. 16

Eloncity Implementation Roadmap .................................................................................................................. 16

Eloncity Mass Market Acceleration .................................................................................................................. 18

AI Grid Foundation............................................................................................................................................... 18

Eloncity Team and Advisors............................................................................................................................... 19

Team ....................................................................................................................................................................................19

Advisors ..............................................................................................................................................................................21

Eloncity Collaborative Networks .......................................................................................................................23

TECHNOLOGY - ELONCITY DECENTRALIZED ENERGY ARCHITECTURE .......................................................24

Technology Overview ........................................................................................................................................ 24

Eloncity Technology Building Blocks ................................................................................................................25

Cryptoeconomic Framework ...........................................................................................................................................26

Eloncity Token Protocol (ECTP) ..................................................................................................................................26

Eloncity Token (ECT) ......................................................................................................................................................28

ECT Mining ..................................................................................................................................................................................29

ECT Mining based on Half-life ..............................................................................................................................................29

Future of ECT ..............................................................................................................................................................................30

Decentralized Energy Storage ....................................................................................................................................30

Decentralized Renewable Generation .....................................................................................................................31`


Direct Current Microgrids ..............................................................................................................................................31

DC Powered Homes .......................................................................................................................................................32

Eloncity Technology Building Blocks Integration .......................................................................................... 34

ECTP Operation ...............................................................................................................................................................34

Hierarchical Chain and Power Flow Management ...............................................................................................35

ECTP and DCbus – Local Power Flows Balancing and Optimization ...............................................................36

DCbus Scheduling ...........................................................................................................................................................36

Transforming EV Charging...........................................................................................................................................39

Demand and Supply Prioritization ........................................................................................................................... 40

Base Load Service Provider (BLSP) Roles ................................................................................................................41

Integration with Centralized Grid...............................................................................................................................42

ELONCITY MULTIFACETED APPROACH ........................................................................................................42

Community - Eloncity Community Development .......................................................................................... 42

Finance - Eloncity Project Financing Infrastructure ...................................................................................... 44

Regulatory - Collaborative and Equitable Framework ................................................................................. 44

ELONCITY MARKET DEVELOPMENT ............................................................................................................45

Royalty-Free Toolkits and Reference Designs .............................................................................................. 45

Royalty-Free Codes ............................................................................................................................................ 46

PROSPECTIVE ..............................................................................................................................................46

Lithium Battery Advancement ......................................................................................................................... 46

Carbon Credits ......................................................................................................................................................47

REFERENCE ..................................................................................................................................................48


KEY TERMS AND ACRONYMS

AC Alternate Current

BESS Battery Energy Storage System

BLSP Base Load Service Provider

DC Direct Current

DER Decentralized Energy Resources

DPoS Delegated Proof of Stake

ECT Eloncity Token

ECTP Eloncity Protocol

EDEA Eloncity Decentralized Energy Architecture

ESS Energy Storage System

EV Electric Vehicle

MOSFET Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor

NEM Net Energy Metering

NOC Network Operation Center

IGCC Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle

IoT Network Internet of Things Network

IOU Investor-Owned Utility

OSG On-site Generator

OSPF Open Shortest Path First

PV Photovoltaic

T&D Transmission and Distribution (network)

ToU Time of Usage

V2G Vehicle to Grid

VDC Voltage Direct Current

VFD Variable Frequency Drive

ZNE Zero Net Energy


OVERVIEW

Our modern life depends on the vast electric grids to power everything from light bulbs to mass transit subways. Despite tremendous strides in technological innovation, the existing grid is largely built on an aging design. This design is essentially a centralized grid architecture based on large power generation plants in remote locations that are connected to the customer sites through a complex labyrinth of transmission and distribution (T&D) network. The coordination of electricity production in alternating current (AC) combined with delivery through the complex T&D network is managed by regional system operators or independent system operators (ISOs). The ISOs must balance not only the electricity production and consumption in real time, but also ensure the electricity produced remotely is transported to customer sites without running into congestions on the vast T&D network. While the current electric power grids are a marvel of engineering feats, this enormously complex centralized power grid design is showing its age. Today’s centralized power grids face significant challenges in providing safe, reliable, secure, and affordable energy services.

PROBLEMS OF MODERN CENTRALIZED POWER GRIDEnvironmental and Public Health Problems, California October 23, 2015 – The underground natural gas storage located in Aliso Canyon (Los Angeles) had a massive leak1. This storage facility is the second-largest natural gas storage facility of its kind in the United States, and it supplies gas to electric power generation plants throughout Southern California. The leak problem was so dire that it prompted California Governor Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency on January 6, 2016. This Aliso Canyon incident created the environmental disaster that was estimated to be larger than the Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico. It was assessed that the Aliso Canyon gas leak released approximately 5.3 gigatons of harmful methane gas into the Earth’s atmosphere, or equivalent to about 12,800 years of the total annual emission of the entire South Coast Air Basin in Southern California. The power utilities in Southern California implemented contingency plans in anticipation of the natural gas shortages for powering the local gas-based electric plants. In the meanwhile, the local residents reported headaches, nausea and severe nosebleeds. About 50 children per day saw school nurses for severe nosebleeds. By January 2016, nearly three thousand households or about eleven thousand people had been temporarily relocated while more than 6,500 families have filed for help. There are other numerous but disastrous centralized grid accidents such as the Chernobyl and the Fukushima incidents. In the Chernobyl nuclear power plant catastrophe2, over 300,000 people were forced to relocate permanently. This nuclear accident released traceable airborne radioactive particles in all countries in the northern hemisphere. As these few examples attest, the centralized grids pose increasingly unbearable impacts to the environment, health, and safety of the people that it serves.

Safety and Reliability Problems, California September 8, 2011 – A deficient equipment maintenance procedure at a transmission switch station in Yuma, Arizona, initiated cascade grid power failures that left more than seven million residents without electricity, from San Diego County to western Arizona and Tijuana3. This major incident exposed the inherent susceptibility of the centralized power grid to point-vulnerabilities. Like the Aliso Canyon gas leak incident, a failure at one single point on the centralized power grid could cause adverse impacts to millions of customers over vast areas. Whether natural or human-induced accidents at any vulnerable points that could be located anywhere on the complex centralized power grid sprawling over the vast geographical areas, the existing power grid’s ability to guarantee safe and reliable energy services looks to be increasingly challenged.

Adaptability and Resilience, Melbourne, January 28, 2018 – More than 10,000 homes in Australia’s second most populous state were stuck without power as a surge in power demands from the scorching heat wave overloaded the grid4. This blackout was caused by a power network failure, rather than supply shortages. It impacted more than 50,00 homes. This came less than a year after Australia’s largest City, Sydney, was hit by


blackouts during another heat wave. During an intense heat wave, power demands can precipitously peak as customers increase their air conditioning. Meanwhile, the grid T&D wires and electric power plants experience reduced electricity transmission and generation due to increased ambient temperature. In the foreseeable future of climate change, cities around the world are expected to experience growing incidents of grid failures due to adverse weathers. From heat waves in Australia and California to frigid winter spells in the northeastern US, to hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, Rita or Maria, we have witnessed repeated episodes of massive grid failures due to the system’s inability to adapt and absorb the disruptions brought about by climate-change-induced events.

Unaffordable Electricity Cost, USA April 14, 2016 – According to a study by Groundswell, a nonprofit renewable energy advocacy group, the cost of electricity is increasingly burdensome for America’s working class. The study reports the bottom 20 percent of earners spend about 10 percent of their income on electricity5. There are a few reasons for centralized grid’s high costs of electricity: (a) Five to nine percent6,7 of the total energy produced is lost during the electricity transmission and distribution. As discussed above, the T&D losses amplified during hot weather spells due to increasing resistance in the T&D wires and equipment as temperature rises; (b) the electricity in AC is relatively complex which requires numerous supporting resources, called ancillary services, to ensure the delivered powers at customer sites remain within the required power quality limits. Examples of ancillary service would be frequency regulation, and voltage-level regulation. Unfortunately, the required ancillary services for the centralized AC grid are costly and account from three to seven percent of the total electricity bill8; (c) Capacity services to ensure adequate power generation capacity to maintain grid reliability during periods of peak demand. The capacity services or standby capacity reserve are compulsory because the today’s power grid lacks real-time coordination of customer power demands with the system’s available power supply. In another word, since the real-time management of power demands at customer sites lacking, the centralized grids procure excess generation capacity to standby just in case they are needed. These capacity services are also costly and can add up to 15 percent of the total bill9. These examples are just a few of the innate and costly inefficiency of the centralized AC power grid design that drives up the cost of electricity for all ratepayers.

THE SOLUTION - THE ELONCITY MODELWith the challenges of natural disasters, population growth, and climate change, new approaches to energy production and distribution are needed. The solutions must warrant vibrant and sustained growth for all. AI Grid Foundation (Foundation) is a non-profit organization based in Singapore who advocates for employing decentralized renewable energy as a possible pathway to address the problematic centralized AC grids as mentioned above. The Foundation has collaborated with global organizations and local communities to develop the Eloncity Model; a multifaceted solution that employs decentralized renewable energy resources to eradicate barriers to attain safe, healthy, vibrant and equitable energy future.

Decentralized renewable energy is employing locally available renewable resources, such as solar or wind power, to produce electricity locally where it is consumed. When energy customers in a community coordinate with each other to exchange energy and share energy equipment costs-benefits (e.g., solar PV, BESS, energy management system, and others) to access more reliable and cost-effective local energy supply, to maximize the utilization rates of the installed equipment for accelerated return-of-investment (ROI) and other benefits, they essentially create a community-based renewable microgrid. This type of decentralized community-based renewable microgrid holds tremendous potential for fortifying the centralized grids and solving the problems threatening our energy safety and security.

The proposed Eloncity Model integrates advanced technologies, best practices and lessons learned to create a scalable and replicable recipe for unleashing the potential of the community-based renewable microgrid to attain a more vibrant regenerative energy future. The Eloncity Model builds upon four key pillars:


1. A decentralized renewable energy architecture, which comprises of:

• A high-performance blockchain technology platform that provides an open, secured and distributed ledger for efficient recording of high-volume and high-speed energy transactions in the community. The blockchain platform also enables the Eloncity community to establish an auditable record for tracking the sources of electricity generation in the community, renewable or fossil fuel. The auditable tracking of electricity generation sources is critical for valuation of electricity based on generation sources and monitoring the community’s progress toward de-carbonization. Fundamentally, the blockchain platform will allow for increased collaboration and sharing of resources in mitigating the entrenched barriers to market-wide adoption of decentralized renewable energy.

• A crypto utility token (Eloncity Token, ECT) facilitates local energy exchange and incentivize investment in battery energy storage system (BESS) for storing harvested renewable energy, as well as creating an open global marketplace that enables communities around the world to access advanced renewable energy products and services. Similarly, renewable energy product and service providers benefit from the leveled and equal access to a unified marketplace to promote their offerings. The token helps break down siloed markets and liberate deeply rooted constraints to bring more communities into the shared regenerative economy. In essence, the token opens up new market channels for efficient linking of resources and innovative products to energy consumers.

• An intelligent networked battery energy storage system (BESS) deployed on the customer premise harmonizes local electricity supply-demand. BESS mitigates the needs for costly capacity and ancillary services. Additionally, BESS also helps to flatten intermittent renewable generations into predictable, reliable and dispatchable renewable resources. The target outcome is to make the energy infrastructure more adaptive, efficient and reliable.

• Customer-sited or community-based renewable generation, such as solar PVs coupled with an intelligent networked BESS, would fulfill all or nearly all the local energy demands. The locally produced renewable powers would eliminate or significantly lessen the needs to transport remotely generated powers through the vastly complex and often vulnerable centralized grid’s T&D networks, while at the same time eliminate losses from transporting remotely produced electricity to customer sites. Producing energy locally where it is needed is decentralized energy. It simply side steps point-vulnerabilities and inefficiency inherent in centralized grid infrastructures to deliver more secure, resilient and affordable energy services.

• Community DC power network uses the renewable DC power more efficiently by eradicating energy loss from repeated AC-DC-AC conversions as well as eliminating the needs for costly AC power ancillary services. DC electricity does not require complicated and costly support such as frequency regulation or reactive power services. The Eloncity’s proposed local DC power grid includes the DCBus Scheduler that optimizes the local electricity distribution at the individual customer-premise level in real-time. In summary, the local DC grid, DCBus Scheduler together with the networked BESS would remove the need for costly ancillary services while eliminating the loss from repeated AC-DC-AC conversions. All these technical innovations seek to improve the affordability of electricity for all.

2. Community-driven planning and implementation warrant the enduring success of the community’s transition into the sustainable, regenerative energy future. Since a community must live with this energy future, it is imperative that the community has a participatory role in defining and creating this new energy future. Additionally, the focus on the local community and its participating stakeholders will propel Eloncity implementation on five fundamental levels; a) community adoption; b) social application; c) measured impacts; d) localized roadmap for continued growth and success beyond initial implementation; e) leverage lessons learned to accelerate wide-scale replication of Eloncity Model.


3. Combined performance-based projects with revolving loans fund create an effective strategy for mobilizing the private capitals to drive wide-scale adoption of decentralized renewable energy. The Foundation will collaborate with financial partners, government agencies, and other key stakeholders to establish revolving loans. The revolving loans’ goal is to contribute to the upfront capital for initiating the project in communities that lack access to such funding. The performance-based projects demonstrate their merits by producing real and meaningful energy bill savings for the community members while generating the required return-of-investment to pay back the startup loans. The repaid loans will be used to finance the subsequent Eloncity projects. This component ensures all Eloncity project are attractive investments and helps to mobilize private capitals to accelerate energy decentralization.

4. A collaborative and equitable regulatory framework facilitates leveled-field markets to mitigate imbalanced market powers, unleash market innovations, protect the energy consumer, and support the local economy. The regulatory framework must ensure fair market access for innovative market players and guide market-driven solutions to provide: (a) safety for the community and those that live and work in it, (b) reliable energy services that support vibrant community development in the face of climate change, (c) cost-effective energy services that are affordable to all, including low-income families, and (d) sustained success of the community transition into the healthy and safe regenerative energy future, and (e ) ensure no community will be left behind as the world accelerates into the clean regenerative energy paradigm. Fundamentally, this component empowers the local governments and city planners with more tools to fulfilling their mandates by leveraging innovative solutions that Eloncity offers, especially in linking clean renewable energies with city planning and local economic developments.

In summary, the Eloncity’s multidimensional approach leverages the following:(1) social and community development, (2) economic viability, (3) technological advancement, and (4) regulatory responsiveness through the project life cycle. This multifaceted framework ensures project planning and implementation are comprehensively informed, synergistically inclusive, equitably tested, locally responsive, systems-oriented and leverage the best of technologies.


Figure 1: Eloncity Programmatic Dimensions

ELONCITY’S ADVANTAGESOpen and Secured Energy Transaction - The ECTP or blockchain platform provides an open, secured and distributed ledger for efficient recording of the transaction of energy services in the community in verifiable and immutable manner. The blockchain platform also enables Eloncity to establish an auditable record for tracking the sources of electricity generation in the community, whether it is renewable or fossil fuel. The auditable tracking of electricity generation sources is critical for valuation of electricity based on generation sources and monitor the community’s progress toward the renewable GHG-free future. This feature facilitates a shared resource economy to maximize asset utilization rates and cost-effective access to decentralized renewable energy.

Unified and Efficient Energy Marketplace - Eloncity Token facilitates an open market that enables communities around the world to exchange energy and shared-resources locally and also to access the unified network of global renewable energy products and solutions. Similarly, renewable product and service providers benefit from a more open global market.

Greater Reliability – The Eloncity provides greater energy service reliability through the decentralized energy architecture’s inherent design ability to anticipate, absorb, adapt to and rapidly recover from potentially disruptive events. The Eloncity design includes locally solar PV arrays or windmills, and intelligent networked BESS for maintaining local electric service stability, flexibility and resilient energy supply during grid service disruptions and emergency events. The BESS, either behind-the-meter and front-of-the-meter, will power the entire community for the desired duration to ride through an emergency event, through the PV non-production periods, until the sun or wind becomes available again to energize the local renewable generators to recharge the BESS. The Eloncity Model is a direct response to address the mismatch of electricity supply and demand at every level of the grid network and overcome risks of single point vulnerabilities inherent in the centralized grid architecture.

Lower Costs – The Eloncity Model is designed to lower Eloncity community energy expenditures over the project’s useful life. The energy expenditure savings are achieved by the combination of (a) Local DC grid network within each community, large appliances powered by DC electricity, together with targeted energy efficiency retrofits to lower overall energy losses and consumption, (b) Generate renewable energy locally to offset all or most of local electricity demands, (c) Flatten peak energy demands to minimize costly demand capacity charges, (d) Purchase centralized grid energy only during the period of lower cost (i.e., off-peak in constrained areas or excessive-generation in areas with utility-scale renewables), and (e) Provide ancillary services to the centralized grid to generate revenues. Economic savings is a fundamental feature of the Eloncity Model, especially in addressing the mounting challenges with high energy cost which disproportionately burden the underserved communities.


Increased Safety – The Eloncity’s renewable generation and BESS reduce or eliminate risks from the dependence on fossil fuel-based backup generators that are often not available in a disaster, have high safety risks of fire, explosions, gas poisoning, and are quite likely available for only the limited amount of time while gas/diesel is available. Eloncity will power the public safety facilities indefinitely in standalone mode with inexhaustible local renewable resources. The Eloncity Model offers a direct response to address the unacceptable risks to public health and safety posed by the fossil fuel-based energy resources.

Societal Benefits – Community-based renewable microgrid (CRM), based on the Eloncity Model, supplies daily clean renewable energy to power the community. The CRM provides energy security and community safety during the disaster and emergency events, as well as ongoing energy bill savings that allow the community to focus its budgets toward critical social programs. Additionally, CRM projects include targeted building energy efficiency retrofits that not only produce energy and financial savings but also make existing community facilities more comfortable and productive with the installation of more energy efficient equipment and building retro commissioning. This mission is driven by how the Eloncity Model is structured to unlock more than quantitative benefits through a decentralized energy system. The vision of Eloncity is also grounded in an energy future that is more equitable and poised for universal replication because of its intended qualitative and societal benefits. Beyond the metrics of a more efficient energy system, the decentralized energy system of the Eloncity Model is designed specifically to advance the environmental, social and cultural values of its stakeholders.

GHG Emissions Reduction – Eloncity will achieve significant GHG emission mitigation by (a) reducing GHG emission through targeted building energy efficiency to lower energy consumption, (b) replacing fossil fuel-based electricity generation with renewable electricity generation and (c) limiting the needs to operate fossil fuel-based peaker plants through flatten peak demands with load-shifting with combinations of energy storage and customer energy demand management. This feature addresses the concern for public health and environmental equity, especially for disadvantaged communities.

Adaptation – Eloncity’s decentralized energy system provides the community with increasing energy security and resilience to adapt to any potential climate-induced, other natural or human-made disasters. The Eloncity’s decentralized and redundant local renewable generations with intelligent networked BESS will continuously power the community during emergency events when the centralized grid services are disrupted. The ability to safeguard the community with a resilient energy infrastructure remains a dire need that is the embedded in the DNA of the Eloncity Model.

Low-emission Vehicles/ Transportation – The Eloncity power system and blockchain architectures include an advanced energy management system, local renewable power generation, an intelligent networked BESS, electric vehicle (EV) to grid connection, and roaming EV charging to support the electrification of transportation. With the benefits of EV and V2G technologies, the Eloncity Model advances public safety, health, and lower transportation cost.

Economic Development – Eloncity will produce energy locally for local consumption. Significant energy expenditures will be retained locally to support the local economy. Eloncity projects will directly support local clean energy employment that will provide human resources to support the Eloncity project planning, design, build and operation. Thus, Eloncity provides not only energy security and community safety, it also holds significant potential for economic development where local communities are empowered to expand the local capacity and workforce.

Environmental Benefits and Public Health – As discussed in the above paragraphs on “Increasing Safety” and “GHG Emission Reduction”, Eloncity will maximize the synergies of targeted energy efficiency retrofits, decentralized renewable generation, energy storage and other decentralized resources to lessen the reliance on fossil fuel backup generators that are often not available in a disaster, have high safety risks of fire, explosions, and gas poisoning.


ELONCITY’S TARGET MARKETSThe potential markets for the Eloncity Solution would be areas that are being served by fossil fuel and nuclear powered centralized grid, or areas that lack electricity services. Eloncity’s market penetration strategy intends on providing full turnkey solutions in areas that lack electricity infrastructure, while simultaneously offering tailored Eloncity solutions to incumbent utilities to address the chronic challenges facing the existing centralized grids. The restructuring of existing utility regulatory regimes is not prerequisite for the success of Eloncity market transformations.

During the initial market development phase, the Foundation will focus on disaster-prone and rural areas because these areas: (a) either have no electricity services or most vulnerable to electricity service disruptions, which would benefit the most from the Eloncity Model; (b) typically lack the local capacity to plan and create the safe, secure and sustainable energy future; and (c) are hard-to-reach and underserved communities. With a more reliable, secured, affordable decentralized renewable energy system, Eloncity microgrids aid underserved communities in rural areas to join the mainstream economy.

Concurrently, the Foundation will collaborate with utilities in dense urban areas to provide the Eloncity Model to address pockets of constrained service areas on the centralized grids. During periods of high energy demands, the congested areas do not have the adequate T&D capacity to import needed electricity to meet the customer’s energy needs reliably. The traditional solution would be costly grid infrastructure upgrades and re-commission fossil fuel or nuclear power plants. On the other hand, Eloncity Model produces renewable energy locally for local consumption thus negating the need for costly upgrades of the centralized grid infrastructure.

ELONCITY IMPLEMENTATION ROADMAPEloncity implementation roadmap delineates into three primary phases: Throughout Phase 1, the Foundation collaborated with a coalition of global partners to develop key building block technologies for the Eloncity Model over the past four years. The collaborative efforts have resulted in commercial launches of intelligent networked BESS, energy management software, DC appliances and customer-sited renewable power generators. These building block technologies have enabled successful deployments of several hundred self-sufficient buildings; During Phase 2, the Foundation will collaborate with research and education institutions, public agencies, local governments, local utilities, global technology partners, financing partners, and community-based organizations to demonstrate fully functional Eloncity Model in real communities throughout the world. The Eloncity Model will be the integration of Phase-1’s building block technologies with three additional building blocks: the blockchain protocol (Eloncity Token Protocol or ECTP) and crypto utility token (Eloncity Token or ECT) to support community energy exchange, community capacity development for the planning and implementation of renewable microgrids, performance-based project financing with revolving loans, and a decentralized regulatory framework to support market-driven decarbonization. The pilot sites will be in diverse geographical regions to demonstrate the replicability of Eloncity’s universal design in meeting the unique needs of diverse energy markets. Key outputs of Phase 2 will be the recipe for replicating Eloncity Model. The Foundation will publish best practices, lessons learned, and project energimplementation processes to assist communities in adopting and implementing the Eloncity Model. In Phase 3, the Foundation will focus on mass-market transformation to proliferate the Eloncity Model to all targeted markets globally.


ELONCITY MASS MARKET ACCELERATIONThe strategies to build momentum and accelerate wide-scale adoption of crypto-economics and renewable AI


ELONCITY MASS MARKET ACCELERATION The strategies to build momentum and accelerate wide-scale adoption of crypto-economics and renewable energy decentralization within the technology dimension of the Eloncity Model, are embedded in the other three pillars of the Eloncity programmatic framework as shown in Figure-1; 1) Eloncity Community Development; 2) Performance-based project financing and revolving loans; 3) Collaborative and equitable regulatory framework. These three pillars together with the technology pillar are designed to synergize and accelerate the proliferation of the Eloncity Model based on four strategies:

1. Overcome Entrenched Barriers - Using multifaceted strategies at each stage of the Eloncity development to overcome commonly identified social, economic, political barriers that hinder adoption of decentralized renewable energy and crypto-economics.

2. Calibrated and Tailored Solution - Applying the four-foundational programmatic framework to optimally configure the Eloncity Model specific to the social, economic, environmental and policy dimensions that are unique to each project site. The local tailoring ensures that every new Eloncity site built represents a successful project in addition to the attractive investment portfolio across multiple markets.

3. Stimulated Demands - Mobilize an ever-growing target of local and international consumers, cross-industry financial partners, as well as institutional regulatory and policy players to drive demand-side economics, accelerate public acceptance, expand viral appeal, and catalyze further mass applications of the Eloncity Model through an innovative multi-stakeholder engagement process.

4. Propagation tools - Apply insights and best practices from ongoing project portfolio to accelerate replicability and transferability of knowledge for the propagation of the Eloncity Model. The Foundation will provide enabling technologies, reference design, standardization of methods, pragmatic tools, verified strategies to equip product and service providers, communities, local-decision makers and city planners, as well as financial partners and interested investors.

AI GRID FOUNDATION AI Grid Foundation (Foundation), a non-profit organization based in Singapore and an advocate for using decentralized renewable energy to address the urgent problems of centralized grids.. We see an attainable energy future that is safer, cleaner, more profitable, and more accessible to all. We believe the shared and consensus-based blockchain technology is vital for building the collaborative decentralized renewable energy future. We recognize that a crypto utility token is an effective and efficient catalyst to create an open and unified renewable energy marketplace for linking energy consumers with product and service providers. We collaborate with global technology and financial partners, local governments and public agencies, communities, and advocacy groups, non-profit organization and other stakeholders to build a collective pathway to that future.


ELONCITY TEAM AND ADVISORS

TEAM

Andy Li, Founder

Andy previously led ChinaCache to build the content distribution network (CDN) Internet infrastructure. CDN is analogous to the networks of decentralized energy resources on the energy infrastructure. Andy also led Alibaba Cloud Computing Data Center Architecture team to pioneer the application of direct current (DC) power system for mega data centers in Asia. Additionally, Andy mastered the network traffic engineering at Cisco System. His work helped to realize the system intelligence at the edge of the network, which is significantly superior to the traditional core distribution networks. Since 2014, Andy has been leading POMCube Inc. to develop intelligent networked battery energy storage systems (“BESS”). POMCube Inc. will be one of the Foundation’s technology partners in implementing the pilot Eloncity Model microgrids to demonstrate the open standard ECTP.

Michael Nguyen, VP of Program Development

Mike’s 30-year career spans across multiple industries; from non-profits, advanced energy programs and policy to IT research and development, to international manufacturing operation and markets development. Mike holds 17 patents and four industry awards for technology innovation. Over the last seven years, Mike’s work focused on California’s ambitious energy programs and policies. His work focused on working with ratepayers and environmental advocacy groups, utilities, technology companies, research institutions and federal agencies to develop performance-based and customer-driven energy programs. He has worked with key stakeholders including California Energy Commission and Public Utility Commission.

Gregary Liu, Marketing Director, Americas

Gregary has 11+ years experience in server system solution architecture and product development. He served as Lead OCP/OCS/OPEN19 design requirements for Mega-Datacenter. He holds an MBA in Management of Technology, National Chiao Tung University; B.S. in Physics, National Taiwan University.


Dunping Yao, Hardware Engineering Manager

Dunping has 6 years experience in BMS hardware design. Other work includes being a Research Assistant, VRB charging technology for two years at INET (Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology) of Tsinghua University. He has a degree in MSEE in Detection Technology and Automatic Equipment, University of South China.

Justin Wang, Product Manager Lead Architect for iCAN, NetZero, Architect, Modular Data Center, Smart3Technology Sr. ME, Emerson Network Power, Xian, China.

Allen Ding, Eloncity Project Manager 9 years experience in electronic design, Expert in magnetic device design and power topology B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Nanhua University.

Peng Xu, Software Engineering Manager 10+ years experience in software development, architecture design, and data analysis, NetZero Software Architect, helped develop POMCube web service system, Built and maintained Foxconn e-commerce website.

Haichuan Jiang, System Verification Manager 10+ years technical experience in system testing and software testing programs Success in managing Integrated Communication Exchange System verification projects Lead team in Energy Storage System project based on the cloud platform (AWS)


ADVISORS ADVISORS

Howard Choy, Local Government, and Public Agencies

Howard led the Office of Sustainability in Los Angeles County, managing and developing energy and environmental programs for both municipal operations and Los Angeles county. The office manages the county’s $200 million annual energy/utility budget for internal operations, energy efficiency programs, and power generation facilities.

Michael Yuan

Michael received a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of five books on software development, published by Prentice Hall, Addison-Wesley, and O’Reilly. Michael was an active code committer in large open-source projects, such as Firefox, Fedora, JBoss, and others. He is an expert in enterprise and mobile software and a principal investigator on multiple research projects funded by the United States government.

Bryan Allen

Beginning in 1987, Bryan began working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. He won three major aviation prizes and is the owner of 22 world aviation records, four that are still current. He is delighted that the home he shares with his wife has three plug-and-play solar panels, two iCANs, and a monthly electricity bill under $20.

Enso Li, DC Power System

Enso is the chief architect of the Tencent Data Center and has experience in 240V high-voltage direct current, data center methodology, modular data centers, rack servers, and lithium batteries. He has nearly twenty patents and has published more than twenty papers and books

Haifeng Qu

Haifeng is the Vice Chairman of the Communications and Information Technology Committee of the China Engineering Construction Standardization Association and participates in the formulation of China’s data center industry standards. He also has a long serving tenure in both IDC and ISP companies.


Robert Fortunato, Net-Zero-Energy

Robert designed the award-winning Green Idea House, one of the first affordable, zero net energy, zero carbon, case study houses built with standard construction materials and off-the-shelf technologies. He is a frequent guest lecturer at Pepperdine University’s MBA Program. Currently, he is working at the LA Cleantech Incubator, coaching startups, and developing strategies for their built environment space.

Robert Mao

Robert Mao is the founder and CEO of ArcBlock, Inc. Mao’s projects and activities have been covered widely by global news media outlets, including TechCrunch, CNN, USA Today, and others. Mao was first introduced to Bitcoin in 2009 and has been researching and experimenting with blockchain technology since 2013. He has lectured on cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology at numerous global events.

Chris Whalley

Chris is a mechanical engineer and call firefighter living in Topanga Canyon, California. His primary interest is in low impact living strategies. Chris is looking forward to eliminating his family’s carbon footprint by getting an electric dirt bike and someday converting his 4x4 for electric vehicle camping trips. He has been using the iCAN since October 2016 and sees residential energy storage as one of the most important technologies in making the electric lifestyle economical.

Kelvin Xu

Kelvin is the vice president of software development at RiC Semiconductor and specializes in 3D facial recognition, and RF radar for autonomous driving. He has held senior software positions at multiple Fortune 500 companies, including Bell Canada, Nortel, Alcatel, and Fujitsu, as well as a number of startups. His expertise includes AI, blockchain, big data, IoT, network security, and wireless/optical communication. Mr. Xu holds multiple U.S. patents in wireless, IoT, and optics communication. Mr. Xu holds a Master of Science from McGill University and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Science and Technology of China in GeoPhysics.

Jasmine Zhang

Jasmine is an account director at NVIDIA, where she manages three major accounts, comprising a market cap of $20-50B each, to facilitate the adoption and implementation of AI technologies by OEM partners in the product and service delivery sectors. Prior to her role at NVIDIA, Jasmine served as a managing consultant to IBM Global Services, where she drove the IBM smart grid global initiatives program in China. As a private consultant, she also advised the CEO of China’s State Power Group Co. on growth opportunities and strategic planning in the electronic vehicles market. Jasmine earned an MBA in strategy and marketing, as well as a Master of Science in global sustainable enterprises from the University of Michigan.


ELONCITY COLLABORATIVE NETWORKSThe table below shows key partners that have participated in the collaborative efforts to develop key building blocks for the Eloncity Model.

Table 1: Global Collaborative Networks

ENTITY CONTRIBUTION

POMCube Intelligent Networked Battery Storage System

Panasonic Battery energy storage cell

CATL Battery energy storage cell

Texas InstrumentsBattery monitor and protector, Differential bus transceivers, DC/DC converter, Amplifier, NAND gate

MediaTek MCU

STMicroelectronics MCU, LDO

NXP CAN transceiver, ZigBee Module

ADI Dual channel digital isolators

Infineon MOSFET, PWM controller

TDK Inductor

Atmel Crypto authentication device

Littlefuse Fuse

LEM Hall sensor

Amphenol Connector

GREE DC appliances

Yingli Solar Solar panel

CybeMiles Plasma-2-Network Layer

ArcBlock Open Chain Access Platform


TECHNOLOGY - ELONCITY DECENTRALIZED ENERGY ARCHITECTURE

TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWFigure 1 displays the key technology building blocks of Eloncity Decentralized Energy Architecture (EDEA), an ecosystem of decentralization technologies and crypto economic tools to enable the shared regenerative energy economy. The modular design facilitates tailored deployment of Eloncity microgrid for diverse communities around the world. An optimal Eloncity configuration would be a direct current (DC) microgrid serving customers within a one-mile radius. This microgrid uses the DCBus Scheduler to manage the power flows in the community. The shared resources in an Eloncity microgrid would be locally generated renewable energy, and the equipment such as BESS, PV arrays, small wind turbines, electric vehicles, DCbus Schedulers and other decentralized renewable energy assets.

Figure 2: Eloncity Decentralized Energy Architecture

Eloncity microgrid resources sharing help to maximize asset utilization rate and accelerate the return-of-investment of the assets. The blockchain exchange platform, or the Eloncity Token Protocol (ECTP), functions as the open and secured public accounting ledger. This ledger would track the transactions of community resources sharing and the sources of delivered electricity, renewables or fossil fuel. The ECTP is an enhanced Ethereum blockchain platform that supports high-volume high-speed transactions. The ECTP smart contract equitably allocates the cost-benefits based on where and when the shared resources are used. To support optimal local energy supply and demand, Eloncity’s artificial intelligence (AI) technology and community network10 provide real-time information on local energy pricing to participating community members to aid in informed decision making. Each community member can set his or her own purchase prices for needed energy, and sales prices for the excess energy. The design’s objective is to optimize localized energy supply and demand in real-time. For microgrids that cannot satisfy their own demand with locally produced renewable energy, they can import energy more cost-effectively given that their energy demand is stable and predictable. A microgrid that continues to rely on imported power to meet their demand is called transitional microgrid. While a self-sufficient microgrid is a long-term objective, the transitional microgrids can dramatically reduce the operational cost of existing centralized grids in the near-term and help to reduce cost-burden to the ratepayers. Additionally, Eloncity Model includes a crypto utility token, Eloncity Token (ECT), to facilitate local energy exchange and incentivize


investment in battery energy storage system (BESS) for storing newly harvested renewable energy, as well as creating an open global marketplace for renewable energy products and services.

ELONCITY TECHNOLOGY BUILDING BLOCKS

CRYPTOECONOMIC FRAMEWORK

In centralized grids, the utility uses time-of-use (ToU) retail energy rates to influence customer energy consumption behaviors. However, the existing ToU rates are generally coarse, lacking real-time locational information of the supply system and customer demand conditions to effectively optimize energy demand and supply. These retail ToU rates are rudimentary with simple on-peak and off-peak prices based largely on central planners’ approximation of future supply and demand. The ToU rates apply uniform pricing to all customers within each customer class across the entire service area, regardless of the supply and demand condition at customer sites. Even the sophisticated energy wholesale markets, such as California, rely on day-ahead data for the system supply and demand planning. The results of the existing approach to balance energy supply and demand are a highly inefficient oversized system and costly reserved generation capacities that stand idle most of the time. On the other hand, Eloncity Model uses a cryptoeconomics framework to help determine a granular real-time locational energy price for optimizing the energy supply and demand at an individual customer level.

The recent innovations in blockchain technology and cryptoeconomics engineering designs have enabled the development of Eloncity energy exchange platform that combines high-speed community network with intelligent hardware, software and crypto utility tokens. The Eloncity energy exchange platform supports an open and secure energy exchange network for efficient real-time machine-to-machine energy exchange. The Eloncity microgrid will be covered with a network of sensors to detect real-time energy generation and consumption. Additionally, the Eloncity Model uses AI algorithm to predict the elasticity of local energy supply and demand, determine fair local energy price, and issue real-time market price signals to customer-BESS for automatic energy export or import energy based on customer preferences. The overarching goal is to use the real-time equilibrium price signals to automate exchanges of local renewable energy amongst customer-owned energy assets (i.e., dispatchable loads, energy storage, renewable generations, etc.).

Real-time dynamic pricing is a highly effective tool to optimize elastic energy supply and demand. Like many commodities, power producers will export more energy into the network, through previously stored energy or increased power generation capacity, when the price is high. At the same time, energy consumers will increase energy consumption when the price is low. As shown in figure 4 below, there is an energy price equilibrium that balances power supply and demand at any point in time and a given grid network.


Figure 4: Energy Supply and Demand Equilibrium

Eloncity’s proposed locational real-time energy pricing framework tackles the foremost challenge of geospatial and temporal mismatches of renewable energy supply and energy demand throughout the existing grids. The Eloncity Model integrates intelligent networked BESS, local renewable generations, local power flows management system with an open and secured exchange network to attain optimally balanced local renewable supply and customer demand in each microgrid. The Eloncity Model also incorporates incentive designs for fully automated real-time inter- and intra-microgrid energy exchange.

ELONCITY TOKEN PROTOCOL (ECTP)

The ECTP is based on blockchain technology to create a highly efficient and trusted community-based electricity exchange platform. It also specifies hardware devices and power network requirements for peer devices to exchange electricity on the blockchain platform.

The core of this protocol is an AI-based algorithm that determines locational real-time energy price equilibrium at any point on a local energy network. This protocol recognizes that the energy supply-demand condition on one street is not necessarily the same condition for another street in a microgrid. Therefore, the value of electricity at any given moment at different locations on a microgrid would be different. The energy price determination of the Eloncity Model is a function of both time and location.

The formula below computed the locational energy price equilibrium. Sit(q, spi) is the unit price suppliers are

charging for energy generation source i, at time t, and for quantity q. Vector sp is a set of parameters related to the energy generation method i, such as solar irradiation for solar PV panels. The X is a stepping function that computes to 0 outside and 1 within the range of 0 and Si

t, the production limit of energy source i at time t in an Eloncity microgrid.

Djt(q, p) is the unit price that consumers in this microgrid are willing to pay for quantity q at time t for consumption

purpose j. Vector dp is a set of parameters governing localized demands in this microgrid. The Qt and Pt are the equilibrium quantity and price at time t.


In an Eloncity microgrid, the power sources for supply (i.e., i from 1 to n) includes:

• Rooftop solar PV panels - The supply from the solar PV panels varies depending on the time-of-day and weather condition of the panel location. This resource is not elastic and not price sensitive.

• Behind-the-meter BESS - Customer-sited energy storage devices such as the POMCube NetZero, Tesla Powerwall, or electric vehicles-to-building (V2B). Those resources are elastic and price sensitive, as they will likely sell electricity when there is a shortage (e.g., during evening hours), and the bid price is high.

• Community-based BESS (commercial versions of ECTP BESS) - These are BESS commercially operated by BLSP (Base Load Service Providers). This supply is elastic and price sensitive.

• Import electricity from the local utilities - The utility energy demand is elastic but it prices are semi price-sensitive. Its on-peak and off-peak pricings are coarse and do not reflect the real-time and locational values of the electricity.

• On the demand side of the equation, the sources (i.e., j for 1 to m) are as follows:

˚ Critical needs - such as lighting in the evenings, cooking, refrigeration, Internet connection (e.g., an Internet modem) and basic air conditioning (e.g., fans), are not elastic and price insensitive.

˚ Comfort needs - such as entertainments, HVAC, clothes washer, and dryer, vacuum machine, are elastic and price sensitive.

˚ Behind-the-meter BESS - can be recharged when the electricity price is low to arbitrage high electricity prices during peak demand periods. This demand is elastic and price sensitive.

˚ Community-based energy storage devices - These are BESS installed by the commercial operators outside of customer premises and operated by BLSPs. The source of energy may come from a local generation or other microgrids. These resources are elastic and price sensitive.

However, the non-linear processes (S and D) and parameter vectors (sp and dp) leading to the price equilibrium are not directly observable. To predict the real-time equilibrium energy price in a microgrid, we need to estimate the probability distribution of price, quantity, and parameter spaces sp and dp. We can assume that the time series S and D are approximate latent Markov processes. A particle filtering approach can be used to estimate the probability distribution.

In an Eloncity microgrid, each BESS (endpoint) collect minute-to-minute data on local supply and demand conditions, as well as the elasticity of energy supply and demand at each customer premise. Those endpoints are ECTP-compliant and act as oracles for the smart contracts on the blockchain. The owner/user of the ECTP device can set the prices for exchange under various conditions, such as the BESS’ power reserve limits and the applicable period for each day. The Eloncity’s AI machine learning algorithm analyzes real-time supply-demand data for each endpoint on the microgrid and computes the particle distribution probabilities. This AI algorithm will start with the assumptions for a set of initial conditions to initiate the Markov process, the algorithm would eventual learned the probability for optimal energy prices for each endpoint on the microgrid.

Once the probabilistic equilibrium price is determined, each device on the local energy network automatically


puts out bids to exchange energy around that equilibrium price. The transactions are recorded smart contracts on Eloncity’s blockchain ledger to support high-speed real-time secure exchanges. The crypto token called ECT serves as a medium of exchange for energy transactions.

ELONCITY TOKEN (ECT)

The ECT is a utility token designed to facilitate energy exchange within an Eloncity microgrid (i.e., ECTP-compliant microgrid) and among adjacent Eloncity microgrids. The ECT will have two primary functions:

• A medium of exchange - On the Eloncity networks, the ECT is used for energy exchange. The supply and demand are regulated by the short-term energy price fluctuations in ECT. The consumers earn ECTs by providing their surplus energy to peers on the networks. The community member uses ECTs to access local electricity services and ECTP-compliant products (e.g., POMCube NetZero)

• A store of value - Each ECTP-compliant BESS device needs to reserve sufficient ECTs that is equivalent to the value of its electricity capacity to participate in the automated exchange. That makes the ECT a store of value backed by the value of electricity. The value of each ECT is determined by the total energy transaction volume of the ecosystem, and the velocity of the ECT transactions. Due to the exchange reserve requirements, there is a limit for the monetary velocity, which creates value for the ECT and produces a stable token system. The exchange of value equation is formulated as follows (Bordo 1987).

M.V=P.QWhere:

• M is the size of the asset base, which is the USD value the token represents.

• V is the velocity of the asset. For US dollars, the M1 monetary velocity is around 5.1. We choose M1 velocity here since the M1 monetary supply consists of cash (exchange) is the most similar to the ECT.

• P is the price of the digital service, and

• Q is the quantity of the digital service. In our case, we will combine the product of PQ as the “GDP” of the total transactions on the network.

We estimate that the total potential value of electricity traded on the network could approach USD 5.6 trillion worldwide by 2040, and the exchange velocity of the token, which is estimated to be 5.1 based on our market reserve design. That implies an eventual token market capitalization of USD 1.1 trillion. However, as future money is worth less than current money, we are discounting the 2040 market cap to present, assuming a prime interest rate of 3% and n=22 for twenty-two years. The resulting 2018 market capitalization of the ECT token is estimated to be USD 560 million as per the equation below.


Additionally, the ECT performs several important functions besides being the medium for energy exchange in the community or store of values of renewable energy. The ECT’s most vital and valuable role is to be the unified exchange medium for linking energy consumers to renewable energy solution providers in the emerging decentralized shared economy. The communities and villages can use their ECTs to access renewable energy product choices and service options. This process of connecting solution providers to the energy consumer would create a unified renewable energy marketplace that is not limited by geographical separation, political boundaries, economic barriers, or any real or artificial barricades. As this marketplace grows organically from one local community into a unified global marketplace, the values of the ECT will increase significantly.

ECT MINING

Before the market reaches the milestone of one terawatt-hour of newly harvest renewable energy stored in ECTP-compliant BESS, miners will receive 16 ECTs as rewards for each megawatt-hour of newly harvested renewable energy stored in the ECTP-compliant BESS. Miners are owners and owners of BESS. The total amount of ECT reward stays the same each time the total of newly harvested renewable energy stored in ECTP-compliant BESS doubles. For instance, after the first one terawatt-hour milestone, miners will receive eight ECTs for each stored megawatt-hour before the market reaches the milestone of two terawatt-hours. After the second milestone, miners will only receive four ECTs before the market reaches the milestone of four terawatt-hours of newly harvested renewable energy stored in ECTP-compliant BESS. The ECT reward scheme continues until the total harvested renewable energy stored in ECTP-compliant BESS reaches 524,288 terawatt-hour, which is roughly three times the total primary energy supply (TPES) in 201211. The total number of ECTs issued for the miner is stated in the following equation:

stated in the following equation:

The Foundation allocates 32 percent of the total token supply for mining the stored renewable energy on ECTP-compliant BESS to help offset the investment in BESS. This 32 percent allocation acts as a market incentive to encourage mass-adoption of ECTP-compliant BESS during the initial market development stage where the lithium battery cell has not reach the ideal energy storage density of 600 Watt*hour per kilogram at the optimal price of US $0.21 per ampere*hour.

ECT MINING BASED ON HALF-LIFE

The Foundation chooses the half-life mechanism to incentivize early investment in ECTP-compliant BESS for storing newly harvested renewable energy. The stored renewable energy in ECTP-compliant BESS is expected to double every three months. As the newly harvested renewable energy stored in ECTP-compliant BESS doubles each time, the time to reach the next milestone of storing newly harvested renewable energy will become longer. By the time the storing of newly harvest renewable energy reaches 50 percent of the total primary energy supply in one year, we expect there will be sufficient BESS capacity deployed in the market to balance the renewable electricity supply with electricity demand. The Foundation expects battery energy storage cost reaching the ideal level of US $0.21 per Ampere*hour by that period. In the final ECT mining period, every 32 gigawatt-hour of newly harvested renewable energy will be rewarded with one ECT.


FUTURE OF ECT

At some point in the future, building-to-building energy exchange will likely be reduced significantly as high-capacity BESS become more prevalent due to the low-cost of battery cells. Future buildings are expected to be increasingly energy self-sufficient. The question at that point would be whether the exchange volume of ECT will still be high or not. The Foundation’s analysis suggests that the energy exchange due to electric vehicle (EV) charging from inter-microgrid roaming would grow significantly, and thus offset for any reduction in building-to-building energy exchange volumes. As discussed in more detailed in the Eloncity Whitepaper, the EVs and roads will become another network for distributing renewable energy. The ECT is expected to continue playing the crucial role as the medium for energy exchange in that future.

DECENTRALIZED ENERGY STORAGE

Decentralized renewable resources such as solar PV or windmills produce energy intermittently and thus cannot be counted on as reliable primary energy supply. However, optimally coupled local BESS, management of customer energy demand (e.g., not running the clothes dryer during a period of no renewable energy production or running said clothes dryer during periods of excess renewable energy production), and the local renewable generators, intermittent renewable resources can be transformed into firmed, reliable, dispatchable and valuable power. The DCbus Scheduler harmonized EDEA’s key building blocks (i.e., cryptoeconomics, blockchain energy exchange platform, real-time locational energy pricing, highly efficient bidirectional energy network, BESS, etc.) to maximize asset utilization rate and create attractive revenue streams for coupled BESS and local renewable generations. Additionally, customers who purchase ECTP-compliant BESS, such as the POMCube NetZero, will receive ECTs as the financial incentive for using their BESS for storing newly harvested renewable energy and help to smooth out the local energy supply-demand.

These ongoing revenue opportunities, ECT incentives, together with efficient asset utilization would transform BESS and renewable generation assets into attractive investments. The Foundation believes energy storage can become investment grade assets as their return on investment outperforms the fixed income investments.

On an Eloncity microgrid, the BESS helps smooth the local energy exchange by providing the critically needed ingress and egress buffer on the customer premise. The BESS energy demands, and thus contributes to local grid stability and mitigates the needs for costly standby capacity services of the typical centralized grid system. For transitional microgrid (i.e., microgrid that does not have sufficient local energy generations to meet local demands), the BESS also enables these microgrids to import energy at predictable and stable levels. During peak demand periods when the imported energy is not adequate to fulfill the local demands, the BESS will discharge to fulfill the deficit capacity thus allows the microgrid to maintain energy imports at a constant rate. The predictable and stable energy import levels would be important for the microgrid operator to negotiate for more competitive power purchase price. Similarly, during periods of low demand, BESS goes into charging mode to absorb excess local renewable energy production. BESS power absorption helps to prevent intermittent power injection into the local grid and minimize grid disturbance. In summary, BESS plays the critical role on an Eloncity microgrid as an energy buffer to facilitate more stable and optimal energy supply-demand ecosystem.

The current EDEA employs two different BESS - one runs at 358.4Vdc to 428.8Vdc and the second system operates in the range of 1200Vdc. The lower voltage BESS are primarily deployed on customer sites, while the high voltage BESS is designed specifically for Baseload Service Providers (BLSPs). The higher voltage BESS allows the BLSPs to transport electricity around the Eloncity microgrid with minimal losses, while the lower voltage BESS is more suitable for customer electronic appliance and equipment that typically operates at voltage levels below 400 Vdc. The overarching design strategy for both BESS is to minimize the required conversion circuitry on the power control system (PCS). EDEA adopts the single stage DC/DC or DC/AC converter


whenever possible so that each BESS would achieve at least 95% conversion efficiency. The DC/DC converter, between DCbus and BESS, will reach 99% conversion efficiency because the DCbus-BESS interface voltages are maintained at the same level.

To maximize battery cell life, all BESS are protected by Battery Management System (BMS) that prevents the battery cells from overcharging, over-discharging or overcurrent (short circuit). Because of high voltage design, the discharging current is usually significantly lower than the battery cell’s design limits. Therefore, the Eloncity BESS design has significantly longer product useful life cycle compared to the typical battery system that uses low-voltage design.

DECENTRALIZED RENEWABLE GENERATION

Whether electricity generation is decentralized energy depends on where it is generated. Decentralized energy system generates electricity where it is needed. On the other hand, the centralized grid generates electricity in large remote power plants, then the electricity must then be transported over long distances at high voltage to the customer sites for consumptions. It does not matter what technology is employed, whether it is used in connection with an existing grid or a remote village, or whether the power comes from a clean renewable source or burning fossil fuel or a nuclear power plant: if the electricity generator is ‘on-site’ or ‘locally’, then it is decentralized energy. This means that decentralized energy could include technologies that polluted the environment such as diesel generators. However, the Eloncity Model builds upon the premise of using local renewable energy to fulfill local demands.

The Eloncity Model employs local renewable resources to mitigate risk to the environment and public health while increasing the local power system resilience and adaptability. The renewable generation technologies of Eloncity Model include solar PV, windmills plus other generation technologies optimized for local renewable resources and suitable for deployment in the target community.

DIRECT CURRENT MICROGRIDS

The bulk of modern power grids distribute electrical energy in AC because AC voltage can be easily changed with transformers. The flexibility of changing AC voltage levels allows the AC power to be transmitted through power lines efficiently at high-voltage low-current to minimize energy loss due to the resistance of long transmission wires. Near the load centers such as cities or neighborhoods, the high voltage AC is stepped down to a lower, safer, voltage for use. However, AC was the only feasible format for transporting electricity over long-distance when the transformer was the only option to alter the voltage 130 years ago (to harness power from Niagara Falls17. There are numerous disadvantages of the AC grids such as the required costly ancillary services to ensure the quality of delivered AC power, power losses in the T&D wires, vulnerabilities of the large T&D network sprawling over vast areas. The required ancillary services, T&D losses, outages due to grid failures, cost utilities and the world economies hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Unfortunately, the ratepayers bear the cost of the inefficient AC grids.

With the advances in power electronics, DC/DC converters are used to change the DC voltage at significantly higher conversion efficiency, typically greater than 98 percent. The DC networks allow load sites to tie into the networks much more efficient as long as interface voltages are the same. DC power does not require the complex and costly frequency and phase synchronization. BESS deployed in the Eloncity microgrids acts as the spinning reserve to maintain the required DC voltage levels with the advantages of significantly faster response in term of seconds versus minutes of the traditional fossil fuel peaker generators of the centralized AC grids. Moreover, BESS would be deployed directly on customer-site or within the communities, which allows BESS operation to be highly tailored to the local supply-demand profiles.


The power flows in Eloncity microgrids are managed by DCbuses Scheduler deployed throughout the microgrid service areas. Each customer site is connected to the endpoints on the DCbus, where these endpoints function as DC/DC converters and voltage regulator. The endpoints maintain high power quality levels for each customer site. When the endpoints detect excessive intermittent loads or power exports from customer sites, the endpoints would temporarily disconnect the deviated customer site from the local system, thus mitigating intermittencies propagating through the microgrid. The granular power flows management of an Eloncity microgrid offers superior delivered power quality as compare to existing centralized AC grids or other AC microgrids.

The size of a DC network is also a critical factor for the quality of the power delivered. The service radius of an Eloncity microgrid will be optimized around the one-mile service radius. Since all renewable energy is produced natively in DC, therefore a microgrid based on DC power architecture would more be efficient and able to provide higher quality delivered power as compare to an equivalent AC microgrid or the centralized AC grid. However, the Eloncity Model can be easily optimized for existing built environment with existing AC grid infrastructure. The Foundation will collaborate with the local utility and community to provide tailored Eloncity Model for each project site.

DC POWERED HOMES

Modern home appliances that use motors are equipped with electronic variable frequency drives (VFD) to maximize energy efficiency. The appliance’s built-in inverter draws 100-120 Vac or 208-240 Vac from the AC wall sockets and electronically rectifies the AC power into DC power. Then the inverter transforms the rectified DC power back to AC at the various desired frequency to support the varying appliance loads. The lighter the workload is, the lower the frequency is set. In other words, our modern appliances are essentially operated in some form of DC power.

Similarly, most modern home and office equipment, (e.g., laptop, LED lights, LCD TV, etc.) run on low DC voltage through transformer-less power adapters. These adapters convert AC power from the wall sockets into DC powers by using high-frequency power transistors such as the metal-oxide-semiconductor-field-effect transistor (MOSFET). In fact, all of the MOSFET-based AC/DC converters are fully compatible with DC power, which means these DC adapters would operate normally when they are plugged a 75V - 300V DC power socket.

So, why do we still need AC at homes and offices? s explained earlier, electricity for the mass markets has been around since the 1880s in AC primarily to support the needs to transport mass-produced electricity from large power plants located remotely from the load centers in the cities. As a result, all of the existing appliances are made to be AC compatible, even though they operate in native DC power.

It is ironic that we convert locally renewable DC power to AC and then reconvert back to DC to powers our devices while wasting a significant amount of precious energy in repeated AC-DC-AC power conversions. Adopting DC power for our home and workplaces can mitigate these ongoing wastes.


Figure 3: Eloncity Decentralized Energy Architecture

200 to 400 Vdc can be used to directly power modern VFD-driven heating and air-conditioning, refrigerators, washing machines, and other typical home and office appliances. Similarly, practically all of today’s information technology devices are already equipped with solid state power adapter, and they can be powered directly by 200Vdc. Therefore, the Foundation proposes all newly constructed buildings to be powered by DC so that local renewable resources can power our devices and appliances efficiently and eliminate wasteful AC-DC-AC conversions.

The Foundation will collaborate with manufacturers, standard bodies, customer advocate groups, and other stakeholder groups to introduce the universal plugs and sockets for 200Vdc so that, everywhere we go, we will be plugged into much more energy efficient energy infrastructure. This approach is consistent with advanced energy policies in key markets, such as California, to make energy efficiency as the first loading order in term of energy procurements and system planning. The envisioned new DC plugs and sockets, called the 200VDC Connectors, will have a built-in safety mechanism to eliminate hazard such as electric arcing. The 200VDC Connector may also include data pins for exchanging device information in smart home and smart building. The device information would be sent to the building’s power systems so that these devices can be seamlessly integrated into the building’s intelligent demand-side management. The demand-side management refers to the management of customer energy demands to ensure the local energy supply and demand are harmonized. However, the 200Vdc Connector standard may take significant efforts and time, therefore Eloncity’s marketing and education efforts in the next two to three years would be focused on major appliances with high energy consumption such as HVAC, water heating, clothes washer, and dryers. The near-term development efforts will focus on high-energy appliances because these are the low-hanging fruits that yield significant energy savings with the DC power system. Moreover, hard-wired equipment such as HVAC does not need the new standardized DC Connector to take advantage of the DC power system.


ELONCITY TECHNOLOGY BUILDING BLOCKS INTEGRATION

ECTP OPERATION

The ECTP specifies the algorithms and rules for an Eloncity microgrid operation. To implement this protocol, we will need software and hardware to conform to ECTP specifications. An ECTP-compliant microgrid operation consists of the following elements:

• Core ECTP core energy exchange platform based on high-performance blockchain network. The Eloncity blockchain will be an enhanced Ethereum blockchain technology that has been optimized for the high-volume high-speed energy transaction.

• Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) is a high-performance consensus mechanism for processing energy transaction. The public validators selected by the community will ensure the security and integrity of transactions, including execution of smart energy contracts. Eloncity’s blockchain will support over 10,000 transactions per second or 1.8 million concurrent energy exchanges at the three-minutes interval.

• A versatile and optimized smart contract platform to support energy-exchange contracts amongst community members, compute real-time equilibrium energy prices for a given location on an Eloncity microgrid and conduct agreed energy exchange.

• A “mining” mechanism to award ECT tokens to customers who use ECTP-compliant BESS for storing newly harvested renewable energy. The mining functions are written as long-running smart business contracts compatible with the CyberMiles virtual machine.

• Universal Open Chain Access Protocol layer to support applications based on any blockchain platforms such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. This universal application interface layer will facilitate eco-rich applications for Eloncity.

The smart contracts based on energy exchange price equilibrium will be developed per ECTP specification and be built into the hardware components of Eloncity microgrid to enable automated energy exchange. The first hardware devices to support the ECTP is the POMCube NetZero, it is a behind-the-meter (BTM) BESS. NetZero provides a buffer for storing excess renewable electricity produced on the customer premise. NetZero can make autonomous energy exchange decisions based on its built-in AI algorithm to analyze the customer energy demand profile. The demand parameters are machine-learned by “observing” the owner’s home energy use over time, similar to how the Nest thermostat functions. With the ECTP enabled devices, such as the POMCube NetZero, deployed in sufficient number on customer premises in an Eloncity microgrid, the Eloncity microgrid will be able to achieve an optimal community energy supply-demand based on local renewable resources.

In addition to the described blockchain-based cryptoeconomics protocol and BESS, the Eloncity Model also aims to provide an alternative power grid network so that the community members can exchange energy independently from the utility’s T&D networks. In an Eloncity microgrid, the DCbus performs as a switching device for managing local power flows and energy exchange. The Eloncity Model aims to maximize the utilization of the DCbus with a pair of copper wires connecting each customer premise within an Eloncity microgrid to the DCbus endpoints. Each endpoint follows the timing set by the Scheduler when sending/receiving energy to/from the DCbus and hence the pair of copper wires is no longer the best effort network. The BESS associated with each endpoint serves as ingress and egress buffer of the network, which, along with the Scheduler, prevents endpoints from overflowing or under flowing the network. An important additional benefit of the DCbus is that it saves as much as 17 percent of renewable energy as it avoids back-and-forth AC and DC conversions that are prevalent in the current centralized AC grids. The DCbus is designed to run at 1,500V to take advantage of the


standard technologies widely used in existing solar farms. The DCbus operating voltage can be reduced down to 1,200V so that the maximum-peak-point-tracking (MPPT) of local solar PV charging controller can be run stable without constantly changing its power-tracking algorithm to maintain the target 1,500V. Running the DCbus at 1,200V will lose little conversion efficiency.

The Foundation envisions the strategic partnership with incumbent utilities to operate their own ECTP-compliant endpoints and participate in the energy exchange with Eloncity microgrids. However, the Foundation sees ideal Eloncity Model implementation to be new ZNE community constructions14. The new construction would integrate rooftop PV, BESS, and DC system during the construction phase, which eliminates 3rd party retrofit installer, higher financial cost and redundant roof insurance typically required in building retrofits. The more streamlined PV, BESS and DC system installation process in new ZNE community construction will offer significantly more cost-competitive energy from decentralized community-based renewable energy. In summary, the Eloncity Model can be easily deployed in areas that lack the electricity grid infrastructure. In the existing built environment that already have centralized AC grids, the Foundation will collaborate closely with the local utility and local government, regional ISO and appropriate regional energy regulating agencies. The Eloncity Model holds tremendous potentials to assist the utilities to fortify the existing power grids across the globe.

HIERARCHICAL CHAIN AND POWER FLOW MANAGEMENT

The Eloncity hierarchical blockchain network is a decentralized processing network. This blockchain network uses a unified utility token so that the energy valuation can be determined consistently across the entire microgrid, and the tokens will be used among the Eloncity microgrids for inter-microgrid energy exchange. Additionally, we also recognize EVs will be roaming from microgrid to microgrid, and hence the ECT can be used as a token to access EV charging when it travels outside its home microgrid. We adopt a scheme called Aggregated Routes from OSPF Protocol v2, (IETF STD 54/RFC237812) to propagate inter-microgrid energy exchange. The OSPF protocol divides the entire network into areas, and the information topology will not be redistributed to other areas. Area border routers act as summary routes, and advertise the address blocks. Eloncity Model leverages the OSPF concept to scale inter-microgrid transactions. We may adopt other protocol later, such as BGP, to improve system scalability and interoperability. While blockchain technology is still considered to be its infancy stage, the transaction processing capability will increase dramatically as we rapidly advance the technologies of the ECTP-enabled platform. By leverage the Foundation’s experiences in warehouse-scale computing, a.k.a. Cloud computing, in which partitioning complex the power grid to easily scale the system performance exponentially. Similarly, Eloncity Model leverage the Shard concept to scale the decentralized energy grid incrementally to increase performance as needed while mitigating large-scale grid upgrades that may leave excess capacity idles unnecessarily. Shard is a proven technique for scaling the database to support additional geographic locations.

When an Eloncity microgrid needs to import energy from a neighboring microgrid, one or more BLSPs from each microgrid will form decentralized ledger and settle the transaction amongst themselves. Note that each Eloncity microgrid may have more than one BLSP, and each BLSP may operate independently with its own decentralized energy resources that connect to multiple microgrids or act as the service point(s) for the utilities. For intra-microgrid energy exchange, BLSPs not only compete with one another but also compete equally with every other endpoint within a microgrid. For inter-microgrid energy exchange, the inter-microgrid transactions reconciliation would be settled amongst the BLSPs along the energy exchange routing paths. As future blockchain technologies improve, we may find more efficient and less hierarchical process for settling inter-microgrid transactions.


Figure 6: Baseload Service Providers in Eloncity Microgrid

ECTP AND DCBUS – LOCAL POWER FLOWS BALANCING AND OPTIMIZATION

ECTP is a suite of the protocol governing how electricity is exchanged at each endpoint.. The three most critical processes of this protocol are: (1) the protocol used in between endpoints and the blockchain energy exchange platform, (2) The TLVs defined between the Scheduler and the endpoints, and (3) How DCbus endpoints send/receive energy.

DCBUS SCHEDULING

The DCbus is the foundational building block of Eloncity microgrids. Each Eloncity microgrid would have DCbus endpoints for each customer premise. These DCbus endpoints are integrated high-capacity BESS, energy transaction Scheduler, and DC step-down/step-up transformer and DC voltage level regulator. Since all conductors have limited electric current carrying capacity, therefore an electricity traffic management scheme must be used to enable optimal energy exchange over a three-minutes time interval. A scheduling algorithm similar to Egress Credit Scheduling, as well as iSLIP Scheduling algorithm, allows an optimized amount of energy to pass through each DCbus endpoint every three minutes. The Scheduler coordinates multiples endpoints, which are bidirectional DC/DC converters, to send/receive energy so that there is no excessive current going through the conductor. Only those endpoints receiving the grants from the Scheduler one interval ahead will be sending and receiving energy.


Figure 8: DCbus Scheduling

The total energy sold (Is) and bought (Ib) over any given 3-minute block will be equal to zero as the Scheduler ensures there will be the exact amount of energy sent or received over this period.

Where Is is the total current transmitted and Ib is the total current received.

The ECTP segments each hour into 3-minute, 6-minute, 12-minute, 15-minute, 30-minute and one-hour intervals so that constant energy resources, such as existing grid or energy storage systems, can continue to exchange energy without initializing new trade every 3 minutes. For instance, a customer can buy electricity from the community solar-garden at a rate of 10kW for an entire hour. Once the trade is recorded and Scheduler finds the spare capacity for the next twenty intervals, the customer’s endpoint can continue to draw 10KW of electricity for an hour. The endpoint will not have to resubmit new petitions in next 20 intervals for this recorded exchange. The above scheme will reduce the transaction counts on the DCbus Scheduler and encourage endpoints to engage in longer periods of energy exchange. Whether or not we should allow trade longer than one hour depends on the Schedule’s memory resources as well as the lessons learned from future Eloncity pilot projects. During the petition process, the affinity of “battery low” and “battery full” has higher precedence than any other affinities, including those with a longer period. However, once the long-period trade is successfully recorded and the grant has been sent, the higher petitions in the following intervals cannot preempt granted petitions. However, the DCbus Scheduler will reserve certain capacity for higher priority petitions so that long-period trades will not hog the DCbus. Therefore, the reserved capacity may get wasted from time to time.

Unlike the existing centralized AC grids, the DCbus does not have to be designed for peak load due to its intelligent switching network with the ingress (seller’s) and egress (buyer’s) BESS to proportion the power flows and local supply-demand throughout the day. The DCbus service reach will be smaller radius and connect only limited numbers of customer premises. Hence, the computational complexity of the DCbus scheduling algorithm is greatly scoped while the asset utilization rate of the deployed resources within this DCbus’ service areas can be easily optimized. The Eloncity DC power microgrid architecture reduces the power system complexity and the required infrastructure investment. The savings from the capital and operating expenditures would significantly improve the affordability and quality of delivered energy within an Eloncity microgrid.


The basic operation of DCbus is illustrated in figures 7 and 8. Figure 7 shows two parties working together to supply the energy demand of 3.5A at 1500VDC to the 3rd party. The exchange takes place after the 3rd party strikes two separate energy exchange smart contract, through the blockchain based exchange platform, with two other parties with their excess energy. After calculating all the outstanding exchange requests, the DCbus Scheduler will select the right pairs of exchanges whose total amperage will not exceed the maximum allowable current on the common bus. In this case, the Scheduler puts these two exchanges on the same time slot because the calculation indicates the total current will not exceed the maximum allowable current allowed on the bus. Note that at any given time, the total current from the sending parties and receiving parties net out to zero.

Figure 7: Three Parties Exchanging Energy

Figure 8 shows four parties exchanging energy. Each two forms an exchange relationship and completes the transaction during the 3-minute time window.

Figure 8: Four Parties Exchanging Energy


TRANSFORMING EV CHARGING

EV as an endpoint roams around. With the emerging vehicle to grid (V2G) technology, EVs has the potential to become secondary energy carriers. The EDEA addresses inter-microgrid EV roaming by using ECT as the medium for accessing inter-microgrid energy exchanges.

Figure 9: Mobile EV Charging

Example of an inter-microgrid roaming EV charging, a company rewards its employees for driving EVs by allowing the employees to charge their EVs with energy produced from the company rooftop PV. The electricity from the company rooftop PV would be offered to the employee at a highly discounted rate. Therefore, the employee purchases from the company at a lower ECT values. But this employee may export the energy stored in this EV at his/her home microgrid to help relieve the demands during peak hours and received more ECTs. The ECTs will circulate among microgrids because of the roaming EV charging. Figure 10 shows how the DCbus works based on existing J1772v5/CHAdeMO charging controllers.

During the evening, the employee’s EV is plugged into the DCbus at home. This EV listens to the local energy exchange communication. Based on the energy exchange dialogs, the EV realizes the local demand exceeds the locally available supply, and the local bidding price is raised. Once the price reaches the target price set by the EV owner, this EV would participate in the local energy exchange and provide the critically needed energy. The EV learns these daily patterns and predicts how much energy it should reserve to get back to the office or next destination in its machined-learned patterns, and the prediction of how much energy stored in the EV’s battery would be available for local energy exchange. If the microgrid has alternative sources of energy such as wind turbines that often generate energy in the late night or early morning, such information can be machine learned by all endpoints, including this EV. Therefore, this EV may trade all their energy without holding back any reserve. The EV may also get recharged the next morning from neighboring commercial and industrial buildings that have patterns of excessive solar energy production. In all of these cases, the EV would become the inter-microgrid energy transporter.


Figure 10: EV Charging

The EVs, like its stationary BESS counterparts, must maximize its economics values over its useful life. By making EV compatible with DCbus and capable of exchange energy using ECT, we expect the EV’s stored energy could be employed to maximize its economic values by participating in the local balancing of energy supply and demand.

Figure 11: Roaming EV Charging

DEMAND AND SUPPLY PRIORITIZATION

When there is a heavy load on the DCbus, how can the Scheduler prioritize one transfer of energy over the others? Why should certain types of demands have higher priority than another type of demands? Similarly, when there is more supply than demand, what are the affinities the DCbus Scheduler uses to prioritize demand and supply? Therefore, the DCbus schedule must classify the supply and demand requests by categorizing each request with appropriate priority class so that the Scheduler can apply a standard set of criteria for optimal coordination of local supply and demand.

For example, the Lithium-ion battery should never be fully charged nor completely discharged. Therefore, when one endpoint experiences a full battery or almost exhaust its battery capacity, its corresponding supply and demand petitions to the Scheduler would be prioritized appropriately.

What are the other affinities that should be considered in designing Scheduler’s petition prioritization scheme? The table-2 below lists several examples. Through Eloncity pilot projects, we expect to identify additional


affinities that cover all possible scenarios. The Foundation will maintain and update the reference petition priority as shown in Table-2.

To prevent certain endpoints from hogging the DCbus, the demand requests with higher priority affinities can only use 3-minute interval. The endpoint can always file multiple requests to relieve its critical condition. The Scheduler may deny the urgent request from endpoints from time to time depending on the loading of the DCbus. Schedulers will also set aside a certain percentage of DCbus capacity for long energy exchanges. Schedulers will allocate the petitions with a large number of intervals based on its available reserved capacity. When the reserved capacity is fully allocated, access will be granted to petitions with a long number of intervals if there is no petition with higher priorities.

Table-2: Schedule Prioritization

BASE LOAD SERVICE PROVIDER (BLSP) ROLES

For each microgrid, we expect the BLSPs to compete in providing services and representing their home microgrid in inter-microgrid energy exchanging. If an Eloncity microgrid is adjacent to a centralized AC grid, the BLSPs are expected to be the connection to these adjacent centralized AC grids. The BLSPs connected to the centralized AC grid is also expected to settle the energy exchanges between the Eloncity microgrid and the centralized AC grid according to the AC grid’s market rates. The incumbent utilities can also serve as BLSPs for the Eloncity microgrid located in their service areas.

The BLSPs are defined to perform the following functions:

• Set up and maintain the local DC voltage levels in accordance to the ECTP specification

• Has the option to cover any unfulfilled contracts between the exchanges in the microgrid.

• Enforce the floor and ceiling price limits so that no one in the Eloncity microgrid can manipulate the system by selling too high or buying too low.

• BLSP should compete fairly with the local exchange peers, the energy consumer in the community.

• Export surplus energy to other microgrids or adjacent centralized grids. When there is excessive energy produced locally within the Eloncity microgrid, the BLSP will purchase these locally produced energies at market rates and export them.


• Purchase the excess energy from neighboring microgrids or utilities and resell the import energy to the community members for profit.

• The BLSP is expected to optimize the required energy import levels such that purchased imported energy would be at a constant rate and minimize high demand charge from the exporting microgrid or centralized grid.

• Use excess energy from the microgrid to perform ancillary services for the utility grid.

• Commercially mining for storing newly harvested renewable energy in the DCbus’ BESS and community solar and wind turbine systems.

INTEGRATION WITH CENTRALIZED GRID

Eloncity microgrids can leverage existing centralized AC grids to import additional energy if it does not have sufficient local renewable resources to fulfill its energy needs. The imported energy could come from nearby local generations, from remote solar farms, wind farms, and hydropower plants.

However, the demands of an Eloncity microgrid would be stable and predictable. The Eloncity microgrids help reduce the peaky demands or intermittent renewable exports that centralized grid typically experienced. The increased stability of demand-supply would reduce the needs for complex power flow management on the centralized grid networks. Fast rerouting is no longer critical either because each microgrid possesses sufficient stored energy to eliminate all intermittent outages while maintaining the required power levels in the microgrid until replacing generation resources come online. The Eloncity microgrids are able to provide ancillary services to adjacent centralized grids, thus helping the local utilities avoid or reduce costly infrastructure upgrades.

As Eloncity microgrid becomes more energy independence, the required reserved capacity will be reduced. Thus, the centralized grid will have additional capacity to support EV growths in their service areas. Moreover, the existing centralized AC grid will gain the additional capacity and reduced the required standby reserved capacity because there will be less unpredictable peak demands. The utility can add additional loads with high confidence that their network will not be overload. In other words, the Eloncity microgrids ability to stabilize local load demands and offer ancillary services will help to fortify the adjacent centralized grids, reduce their operation cost and the needs for costly infrastructure upgrades.

ELONCITY MULTIFACETED APPROACH

Although the road to mainstream adoption of decentralized renewable energy, the blockchain, and crypto utility token is still unfolding, the quantum leap in popularity and interest that these technologies generated in 2017 revealed evidence of potentially profound solutions to entrenched energy problems. Communities and industries are no longer asking IF solutions can be found to the biggest problems with the crypto token, blockchain technology or renewable energy decentralization, but WHEN. For any of this to deliver on its potentials, we must mobilize multi-stakeholder engagement to galvanize demand for it. This is why the Eloncity Model is designed holistically and systemically, to integrate social, economic, regulatory and financing dimensions to aid the technological progress.

COMMUNITY - ELONCITY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT The Eloncity Model is about decentralizing, a move towards localization, from unbundling the centralized energy services to shared consensus blockchain ledger to crypto utility token. The Eloncity is not limited to the technical


efforts to reshape the energy infrastructure, it also about replacing the bureaucratically burdened hierarchies and inefficient centralized systems with socially decentralized solutions, and empowering communities and individuals to participate in creating a vibrant, safe, secure, healthy, sustainable and equitable energy future.

The Eloncity Model is set up to be powerfully socially relevant, and economically attractive as it is based on a universal principle that the new energy economy will be one OF the people, FOR the people, BY the people. The community-driven development ensures Eloncity’s innovative technological components reaches full potential by providing the structure for:

• Strengthening participation of community stakeholders and households in ensuring buy-in to ensure the constructed energy system is OF the people.

• Optimize the application of the constructed energy system to be FOR the people by configuring and aligning the technological components to local interests, need, wants, resources, capacity, and social characteristics.

• Facilitate and embed a sense of ownership within the community in building the model to be BY the people where community stakeholders, from participating households to local entities, embrace accountability and incentivize to plan, build, operate, maintain and expand their decentralized energy network.

This emphasis on the local community and its participating stakeholders propels Eloncity’s business model on five fundamental levels; 1) community adoption; 2) social application; 3) measured impact; 4) continued growth and success beyond initial implementation; 5) social innovations and insight to accelerate mass market replication. The Eloncity approach builds the new energy marketplace from the ground-up and from within the community to unlock sustainable, environmental, social and economic benefit that has until now, been obstructed by typical centralized and hierarchical structures that work from a top-down, externally imported fashion.

Key community development steps:

• Design - Holistically calibrated modeling and locally tailored scenario analysis based on local needs, desires, and resources. The objective is to unlock quantifiable synergies and interconnections to define metrics and specifications for high-performance projects. Best-integrated performance metrics will be designed to maximize potential environmental impact, public health benefits, as well as other value streams defined as important by the locality. Stakeholders’ evaluations will utilize participatory research methods to leverage data insights not only from numbers but also from socio-cultural perspectives that are important to inform community-mobilization strategies for Eloncity Model deployment. Utilizing participatory research methods and on-the-ground expertise for holistic programmatic design to synergize local needs with the technology, finance, and regulatory components. This design phase involves a robust multi-stakeholder and collaborative process to conduct interdisciplinary field research, analytics, and data collection processes to define performance metrics for measurement and verification in delivering real values to the community and stakeholders.

• Planning - will be framed along the identified social barriers to guide the strategies to engage and empower community stakeholders in the planning and deployment of Eloncity project. Local community coordinating and working groups will be created to ensure local ownership and commitment, locally driven solution, project design responsive to local needs, effective localized deployment efforts, and enduring project success. The overarching goal is to enable the project to access untapped capacities and resources and focus efforts on what deemed most important to the community.


• Deployment - Include local community capacity-building initiatives, coalition development methods, and interdisciplinary collaborations to increase deployment efficiency, lower costs, and increase salient local benefits and values; convene a local working group of community members and partners to eradicate local silos and inform opportunities for resource leveraging during the deployment phase.

• Scaling - Includes stakeholder evaluations to assess the project’s perceived and actual value by the community and key constituents. The overarching goal of community scaling is to manage risks and systematically grow the local Eloncity microgrid capabilities, sophistication, and benefits layered over time. The scaling includes local groundswell strategies, community infrastructure to provide ongoing support for identifying and scaling up local opportunities. Engagement with stakeholders will define clear local development roadmap from the initial initiatives to future project opportunities in the surrounding areas.

• Education Materials and Mobilization Campaigns - Educational outreach materials will be created, contextualized specifically for local community-experience according to the identified local social barrier. The design goal is to ensure a strong link between the project design and the local community needs and characteristics. This includes community-based participatory assessments needed to define an effective, comprehensive, commercially viable business case for the target project sponsors, developers, and the community.

FINANCE - ELONCITY PROJECT FINANCING INFRASTRUCTUREPerformance-based requirements combined with revolving loan funds will be an important strategy for mobilizing the private capitals to drive wide-scale proliferation of decentralized renewable energy. The Foundation will collaborate with financial partners, government agencies, and other key stakeholders to establish revolving loan funds. The revolving loan fund’s goal is to contribute to the upfront capital for initiating the project in communities that lack access to such funding. The performance-based projects demonstrate their merits by producing real and meaningful energy savings for the community members while generating the required return-of-investment to pay back the startup loans. The repaid loans will be used to finance the subsequent Eloncity projects.

The Eloncity Model is designed to become sustainable without requiring ongoing support from donations or ratepayer funds. The Eloncity development launch will be based on the revolving loans initially. However, it will transition to self-funded projects by developing and delivering portfolios of Eloncity projects that generate steady income streams. The Eloncity projects will fulfill customer’s energy needs with on-site or locally produced clean energy more competitively than any centralized or non-integrated energy model. Eloncity project developers will raise funds to finance the development of new Eloncity projects by selling the income-producing Eloncity portfolio to investors as asset-backed securities. To attract significant additional capital, the Foundation will assist Eloncity project developers to work with risk management service providers to evaluate and provide insurance against the risk of the Eloncity portfolio’s revenue volatility.

REGULATORY - COLLABORATIVE AND EQUITABLE FRAMEWORKOne of the key barriers to effective proliferation of decentralized renewable energy is the inability of government regulatory and policy to keep pace with the technology innovations. Moreover, institutional red tape and bureaucracies, as well as the high infrastructure cost of the centralized power grids further entrenched this roadblock. However, the regional and local governments are the ideal customers for Eloncity Model because their mandates are aligned with Eloncity’s overarching goals of attaining an energy future that is safe, secure, sustainable, vibrant and equitable for all. Therefore, the Eloncity Model represents the ideal framework for local government’s city and urban planning, which include building code, public health, public works, and security.


Thus, the governmental partnership represents significant market opportunities for the Eloncity Model.

The regional and local governments know where they must go, but not how to get there. For example, the State of California distributed US$44.5 million, State of New York distributed US$40 million and the State of Connecticut distributed US$26.5 million in grant funds soliciting proposals to help these regional governments understand decentralized microgrids and how to apply them to real communities23. Similarly, on the blockchain and digital crypto token, the government understands the leap in popularity and interest in these technology platforms and the potential solutions24. They are not asking IF solutions can be found through crypto and blockchain, but WHEN. Eloncity Model offers the pathway that these governments are seeking.

Our objective is to collaborate with broad stakeholder groups to advocate for an equitable regulatory framework that facilitates leveled field markets necessary for mitigating the imbalanced market powers, protecting the energy consumers, supporting the local economy, and unleashing market innovations. We will attain these objectives by:

• Demonstrate the working model of Eloncity in supporting regional and local government collective efforts in attaining the overall energy security and sustained economics growths.

• Allow local governments and city planners to participate in the deployment and commercialization process of Eloncity Model - linking Eloncity’s building blocks with city goals to create the implementable plans based on Eloncity configuration tailored to individual locality needs and resources.

• Allows city planners and local decision-makers to identify scaling opportunity of Eloncity Model based on local needs, priorities, desires and resouces. These collaborations will define scaling strategies with resource interconnections for leveraging, and setting the grounds to cultivate new local partnerships needed for deployment of future Eloncity projects.

• Provide tools and training to transfer knowledge on the proven approach to decentralized renewable energy, application of blockchain’s open and secured consensus-based platform to drive sustainable local economic developments.

• Initiate coalitions and conferences as the collaborative mechanism for bringing industry, policy, and business, municipal, and regional government leaders together. The primary function is to facilitate cross-industry dialogue to ameliorate existing siloed investment, business and policy environments, and to provide a platform for bridging financing and policy incentives for Eloncity’s propagation.

ELONCITY MARKET DEVELOPMENT

The potential markets for the Eloncity Solution would be areas that are being served by fossil fuel and nuclear powered centralized grid, or those areas that lack electricity services. Eloncity’s market penetration strategy intends on providing full turnkey solutions in areas that lack electricity infrastructure, while simultaneously offering tailored Eloncity solutions to incumbent utilities to address the chronic challenges facing the existing centralized grids in built environments. The Foundation will collaborate with the incumbent utilities to fortify existing grids. The reformation of existing utility regulatory regimes is not prerequisite for the success of Eloncity market transformations.

ROYALTY-FREE TOOLKITS AND REFERENCE DESIGNS The Foundation aims to assist Eloncity partners (e.g., project developers, hardware product manufacturers, system integrators, etc.) to implement Eloncity microgrids (ECTP-compliance microgrid) and mass-market


launch ECTP-compatible hardware products expeditiously without the costly development of ECTP-compliant technologies and project processes. This objective will be achieved by providing royalty-free Eloncity Toolkits for a completed suite of hardware platforms, and project development guide that is necessary to efficiently deploy fully operational Eloncity microgrid. The Eloncity Toolkits will be including ECTP Application Notes, Reference Design Schematic and Bill-of-Material, Eloncity Project Planning and Implementation Handbook, Eloncity Community Development, Eloncity Project Financing, Best Practices and Lessons Learned, Project Measurement and Verification, Qualified Vendors List, Case Studies, plus other necessary documentation. The Foundation Engineering Lab, Field Application Engineering and Project Development team will provide additional necessary supports. The Foundation may partner with several contract manufacturers (CM) or original equipment manufacturer (OEM), as well as selected technology partners to mass manufacture key components to attain affordable prices through high economy of scale. The Foundation will develop Eloncity e-marketplace for the linking of customers, products, and services. This e-marketplace will include forums for communities, real estate developers, system integrators, manufacturers, contractors, special interest and working groups to share lessons learned, best practices, feedbacks, recommend services plus information sharing from the deployed Eloncity projects and mass marketed ECTP-compliant products. The Eloncity eligible partners will be able to download toolkits from Eloncity e-marketplace. The participants in this e-marketplace will be able to use ECT to access ECTP-compliant products and services globally. Royalty-free intellectual property (IP) license does not grant the right to build another product platform based on the Foundation’s IP.

ROYALTY-FREE CODES The Foundation will develop blockchain-based energy exchange software, including hierarchical chain structure to support inter-microgrid energy exchange, and the DCbus Scheduler. The reference source codes will be made available for eligible-partners to download as royalty-free codes from the Eloncity e-marketplace. The reference codes will be maintained and updated by the Foundation. Like the ECTP-compliant hardware platforms, the Foundation seeks to mitigate redundant development efforts such that the Eloncity partners can reach mass-market launch quickly and efficiently.

PROSPECTIVE

LITHIUM BATTERY ADVANCEMENT Thanks to the IT industries and the rapid growth of EV throughout the world, we are witnessing the rapidly growing economy of scale of lithium battery technology and its increasing cost affordability. With all the investment brought into battery energy storage industry over the past few years, we anticipate the high-performance solid-state lithium-ion battery will soon reach commercialization with more gigawatt battery factories commencing production. We expect to see lithium-ion batteries with twice or even quadruple energy storage capacity at the same price in the near future. The searches for new material, other than lithium, to build high-performance batteries also have been making strides as well. A Stanford developed battery based on sodium14 promises offers similar performance characteristics while costing less than 80 percent of today’s lithium-ion battery with the equivalent energy storage capacity. Therefore, we believe that battery storage will become significantly more affordable and indispensable part of our modern life. Together with the advances of microgrid technologies and the secured consensus-based blockchain platform, high-performance community-based renewable microgrid outlook is promising.


CARBON CREDITS Because of the extended use of renewable energy, Eloncity microgrids are likely to receive carbon tax credits in the early development period. These credits can be used to purchase ECT from the open market, or they can be used to pay for the infrastructure services provided by BLSPs. The Foundation will study this subject and identify the appropriate pathway to use the carbon credit for advancing the commonwealth of Eloncity communities.


REFERENCE

[1] Newikis (No date). Aliso Canyon Gas Leak. Retrieved May 30, 2018, from https://www.newikis.com/en/wiki/Aliso_Canyon_gas_leak

[2] A Report Commissioned by UNDP and UNICEF with Support of UN-OCHA and WHO, (Final Report Jan 22, 2002), The Human Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident – A Strategy for Recovery. Page 66.

[3] Morgan Lee, (Feb 4, 2014). Feds Blame Six Groups for 2011 Blackout. Retrieved May 30, 2018, from http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-violations-southwest-power-outage-2014feb04-story.html

[4] Reuters Staff, (Jan 28, 2018). Heat Wave Leaves Thousands of Australian Homes Without Power. Retrieved May 30, 2018, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-power/heat-wave-leaves-thousands-of-australian-homes-without-power-idUSKBN1FI0CO

[5] Patrick Sabol (no date), From Power to Empowerment – Plugging Low Income Communities Into the Clean Energy Industry. Groundswell.

[6] U.S. Energy Information Administration, (no date). How much electricity is lost in transmission and distribution in the United States? Retrieved May 30, 2018, from https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=105&t=3

[7] The World Bank (no date). Electric power transmission and distribution losses (% of output). Retrieved May 30, 2018, from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.LOSS.ZS?end=2014&start=1960

[8] Engie (Jan 20, 2014). Electricity Pricing Breakdown: Ancillary Services Cost Components, Retrieved May 20, 2018, from http://www.engieresources.com/index.php?id=122

[9] Engie (Jan 6, 2014). Electricity Pricing Breakdown: Capacity Cost Components, Retrieved May 20, 2018, from http://www.engieresources.com/index.php?id=1330

[10] Internet Society, (May 2018), “Unleashing Community Networks: Innovative Licensing Approaches”, retrieved on 2018-06-12, from https://www.internetsociety.org/resources/2018/unleashing-community-networks-innovative-licensing-approaches/

[11] Wikipedia, (Jun 2018), Primary Energy, retrieved June 19, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_energy

[12] OSPF Version 2, April 1998 - https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/std54

[13] Modified from the topic on microgrid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_generation

[14] https://www.californiaznehomes.com

[15] https://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2017/10/09/sodium-based-batteries-cost-effective-lithium/

[16] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternating_current


[17] http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_niagara.html

[18] [A Dynamic Supply-Demand Model for Electricity Prices, Manuela Buzoianu, Anthony E. Brockwell, and Duane J. Seppi, May 2005]

[19] [Demand side management of industrial electricity consumption: Promoting the use of renewable energy through real-time pricing, Paddy Finn & Colin Fitzpatrick, 1 July 2013]

[20] [Optimal bidding strategy of electricity retailers using robust optimization approach considering time-of-use rate demand response programs under market price uncertainties, Sayyad Behnam Mohammadi-Ivatloo; Kazem Zara; p. 328 – 338, March 2015]

[21] PG&E explaining Demand Charge - https://www.pge.com/en/mybusiness/save/smbblog/article/understanding-and-managing-business-energy-rates.page

[22] SCE Demand Charge https://www.sce.com/wps/portal/home/business/rates/

[23] SDG&E Official explanation of Demand Charge https://solartechonline.com/blog/understanding-demand-charges/

[24] How 2017 Made the Argument for Microgrids, retrieved 2018-06-09, from https://microgridknowledge.com/microgrids-2017/

[25] The SEC Just Appointed Its First-Ever Crypto Czar, retrieved 2018-06-09, from https://www.coindesk.com/sec-just-appointed-first-ever-crypto-czar/

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