Insights | Energy Web helps the industry to reduce carbon emissions and upgrade!

An "energy crisis" has swept the world recently. As of September 2021, European natural gas prices have soared by 250% to a seven-year high. The cost of electricity has flown like a rocket. The price of electricity per MWh in the UK once rose to 285 pounds. After 22 years of historical records, Spanish electricity prices have soared by more than 200% since the summer, and many companies are on the verge of stopping production and reducing production.

In China, the prices of the "three brothers of coal" (thermal coal, coking coal, and coke) have risen sharply in the market in the past two months, and the annual coal production capacity gap has reached 217 million tons. With coal prices at a historical high and dual carbon target, Strict energy consumption control has been launched in many places, power and production restrictions have been increased, and the dual control policy has become stricter. So far, the global energy sirens have been blowing horns.

Under the influence of the energy crisis, the limited production capacity and price growth of most middle and upper reaches of the industry have kept commodity prices high, and the global inflation fever is hard to retreat. Behind this energy crisis that spans billions of people worldwide, "Emission peak" and "Carbon neutrality" are the key that must be mentioned.

In the 800,000 years before the Industrial Revolution, the carbon dioxide content in the earth's atmosphere has always been below the 240 ppm (part per million) average line. After humanity started the industrial revolution, the carbon dioxide concentration rose to 417 ppm. Hence, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC established that by 2050, countries could only emit 800 billion tons of carbon dioxide at most.
For my country, by 2030, carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP will drop by more than 65% compared to 2005, and the proportion of non-fossil energy in energy consumption will drop to about 25%.

China is a big coal country, balancing the contradiction between economic development and carbon emission reduction, starting a positive cycle of industrial Decarbonization, and carrying out a green revolution is a marathon battle that has affected more than one billion people, lasted for decades and tens of thousands of meters.

The industrial upgrade of the carbon emission reduction is imminent. In March, Xinhua News Agency released the "14th Five-Year Plan" outline, which sets out the development plan for the next 5–10 years.

The outline mentioned that the added value of the digital economy industry would increase the proportion of GDP from 7.8% to 10%, and the digital technology and the real economy will be deeply integrated. It also lists seven major digital economy industries, including blockchain. It seems that my country's determination to promote industrial upgrading and develop a digital economy also verifies the strategic significance of blockchain technology for digital development.

Energy Web is under the blessing of blockchain technology and aims to pass:

Firstly, distributed energy (DER) builds a balanced power supply in a renewable grid;

Secondly, the digitization of the renewable energy market makes it faster and easier to purchase;

Thirdly, enable energy equipment to track the life cycle and empower a circular and green economy;

Fourthly, promote the encrypted climate agreement to achieve the Decarbonization of the entire industry. These four methods release open source and distributed sharing of digital technologies to accelerate the low-carbon transformation of the industry and the green development of energy. The decentralized operating system (EW-DOS) is the entire heart of the network.

(EW-DOS) is an open-source stack of decentralized software and standards that enables market participants to digitally orchestrate software and standards for low-carbon power systems, just like the new digital DNA of the power grid, which mainly supports two use cases:

1. Traceability of clean energy and carbon emissions;
2. Use of distributed energy to improve grid flexibility.

Two tools in Energy Web (EW Switchboard and EW Zero) and the three core technologies EW Origin SDK, EW Flex SDK and Energy Web chain help its technology land.

EW Switchboard is a pioneering open-source identity and access management (IAM) tool suitable for authentication, authorization, and accounting using SSI, DID, and VC.

EW Zero is an open-source application that allows any renewable energy buyer to find and purchase from various digital markets worldwide through the integrated energy market.

The EW Origin SDK suite supports existing and emerging renewable energy and carbon markets to simplify the issuance, tracking and trading of Energy Attribute Certificate (EAC), including Renewable Energy Certificate (REC), Guarantee of Origin (GO) and International I -REC.

The EW Flex SDK kit enables grid operators, including vertically integrated utilities, distribution system operators (DSO), and transmission system operators (TSO) — to integrate distributed energy (DER) into energy markets and demand planning.

Energy Web chain is a public chain platform specially designed for the energy industry's regulation, operation, and market demand. It was launched in 2019 as the primary digital infrastructure for building and running DApps.

The Energy Web ecosystem has spread to more than 110 industry participants in different countries and regions in the application field, and it is the world's largest energy blockchain ecosystem.

In April 2021, the German automation manufacturer ASA automation announced that it would apply Energy Web Zero through the Energy Web blockchain to help ASA purchase renewable energy for its production facilities in Germany and Chile and provide energy attribute certificates to make it an international supply chain Decarbonization.

In May 2021, Energy Web announced its cooperation with Volkswagen to jointly explore integrating electric vehicle charging stations, use electric vehicle batteries to store the remaining renewable energy, and integrate distributed energy (DERs) with the grid to balance the grid load.

In June 2021, Energy Web and ENGIE Energy Access, an African solar and micro-grid solution provider, announced that it would help build sub-Saharan Africa's solar and mini-grids through decentralized finance (Defi) and open-source energy network technology stacks.

In August 2021, Australia's National Grid (NEM), which is at the forefront of the world, announced that by 2040, it would use distributed energy sources (DERs) to meet half of its electricity demand. NEM uses DERs energy to obtain a unique digital identity through the decentralized identifier DID and acts as an anchor point in the grid aggregator. According to its technical capabilities and the connection position in the distribution network, the decentralized operating system (EW -DOS) for data exchange.

In September 2021, Protocol Labs and Energy Web collaborated to demonstrate an open-source solution that enables storage providers to use renewable energy search engine Energy Web Zero to purchase proven renewable energy from 3Degrees. Each purchase record points to Energy Web. A verification page of Zero to show the location of energy production, record the type of renewable energy, and provide a certificate to prove its ownership.

Energy Web's ecosystem includes public utilities, grid operators, renewable energy developers, institutional energy buyers, IoT/telecom industry leaders, etc. It provides a boost that cannot ignore for the digital upgrade of the industry.

Nowadays, more than Energy Web is taking action in the field of blockchain. More than 170 institutions from finance, technology, non-governmental organizations, energy and climate, including Protocol Labs and Web3 Foundation, have joined the United Nations as supporters. The Framework Convention on Climate Change supports the Crypto Climate Accord (CCA).

It aims to accelerate the development of digital solutions and set new standards for other industries so that the blockchain industry will achieve the goal of 100% use of renewable energy by 2025.

In the context of my country's dual-energy consumption control, vigorously develop technological innovation and digital development, and use the deep integration of complicated technology with the physical industry, so that carbon reduction will not be reduced to an empty slogan and a flashy farce.

Opportunities are hidden in the crisis, and the wave of the new technology era has a kick-off.