Hear me out. On Reddit, the #solarpunk channel is decidedly anti-blockchain. To me, this is totally surprising and against the actual ethos of Solarpunk - to integrate technology for a bright, clean future.

Granted, blockchains don’t have much reputation in alternative circles. And for a good reason. A lot is just linked to scams, get-rich-quick dudes, and speculation, apart from energy consumption arguments.

But blockchain at its core is just a distributed database. One that has no central authority, can not be tampered with, cannot be altered, nor taken down if parametrized accordingly.

This allows - as a potential - to democratize access and value creation. Renewable energy is also fundamentally decentralized. Everyone can participate!

Now, with the costs of renewable energy creation (notably solar) shrunk significantly, and the demand for energy consumption rising heavily, if we only think about the booming electric vehicles alone -

What if people could earn money by generating solar energy and selling directly to vehicles, instead of the grid? I believe this could actually boost renewable energy generation over the roof.

Generators would be rewarded with a blockchain token for the energy generated, while consumers would pay for the energy in those tokens. Therefore speculation would be curbed as the tokens are for a real thing, energy, which on top is a stable unit - kWh.

Of course there are a lot of hurdles here - mostly institutional. Usually, energy is controlled by local authorities. They don’t want to allow anyone access to this market.

Then there is the distribution issue. Energy must be transported to the points of consumption, the charging stations. But due to the decentralized nature, this could actually result surprisingly cheap, as instead of transporting large distances, more charging stations in neighborhoods could reduce those distances. But still, this would require upfront charging stations and distribution investments.

I am an engineer. A dreamer. More often than not, as many many others, the realities of markets and economies clash with such ideals, thrashing generally good ideas.

But I wonder if such a scheme could made be possible. Anyone having some good suggestions? I mean mainly from the economics side. How to design the scheme, how to make it so that it is interesting to everyone? There are already several solar energy blockchains, but they kinda failed to get traction.

For the more radicals - I also dream of a money-less Solarpunk future, but to date, it seems further away than ever, looking at the right wing surge everywhere. Maybe we can build bridges at least from the technological side. Thank you if you got so far. Happy to respond to critique and questions.

  • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    2 days ago

    So, if I understand your pitch correctly (and, let’s be clear, this is information that needed to be presented right off the bat if you actually wanted to communicate this idea effectively), you’re envisaging a model where you sell some kind of hardware, presumably a complete solar panel kit of some sort, which then acts as a uniquely authorized validator node on your network, while also accounting for each unit of power pushed by that panel. As validator nodes, each panel contains a full copy of the database, and acts to verify new transactions, ensuring the integrity and security of your blockchain.

    I’ll allow, for the sake of your argument, that your keys and code are sufficiently secure that you’ve accounted for basically any possible hacking risk. We don’t need to get into that argument. While in practice perfect security is impossible, for now we’ll say that your hypothetical security is “good enough.”

    Right off the bat, we run into the following challenge:

    • If the device is an all in one, including the panel, your idea is dead from the start, because your target audience wants to install their own panels and then share their excess power, effectively banking it for later. You’re not going to convince them to use this bespoke solution just to take advantage of your charging network concept. Your plan cannot rely on you beating out every other solar panel manufacturer in the world; that is lunacy.
    • If the device is distinct from the power source, like some kind of box that you interconnect between the power source and your grid, there’s basically no technical soution I can conceive of that would prevent someone from plugging it into their state / national grid and converting off-peak electricity into solar credits that they then bank for on peak hours.

    Its remotely possible that the economics of the whole thing makes the latter option unappealing, but if so, I can’t see it. At best you’ve basically removed the incentive to use solar that the scheme is supposed to offer.

    Another technical issue with this approach is that you want these devices to be usable wherever the sun shines, but in order for them to be able to each act as a validator node they have to each contain a full copy of the database, and that means having at least a decent internet connection if this system is ever supposed to scale. That isn’t going to work out at the cabin.

    But even supposing those problems are solvable, and supposing that you can solve the problem of how the power gets from the panel to the charging stations without going through the local power company, we’re left with this question: Why blockchain?

    You say that you want this to be distributed, public, not under the control of any one entity, but your keys would have to be authorized by a central authority. You would have to be the only producer of these devices to ensure that some unscrupulous individual doesn’t build a box that runs a hundred validators at once, exposing you to sibyl attacks again. You would also have the ability to revoke any key at any time. There would be nothing truly decentralized about this system.

    • holon_earth@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
      0·
      2 days ago

      Yeah this is the best critique in all the answers. I was aware of most of these issues, and I hoped that by sharing the idea, ways to improve it and make it viable would emerge. I was thinking that the same way solar energy can be metered and sold today (after all, you can’t lie about having generated energy you haven’t, can you?), the infrastructure issues could be addressed (being the meter the actual node, and possibly as some kind of light node, which wouldn’t have to store the whole chain). The most important goal however was to boost decentralized solar energy generation, and make it profitable to individuals and self-organizing communities, instead of relying on our slow, gating institutions. Think of shanty-towns in the tropics which could suddenly be contributing to a cleaner world while also resulting to be better off (some credit scheme or something would be required for their investment costs, of course). If this idea doesn’t reach those goals, it’s useless.

      I still believe blockchains have potential but this is maybe not the best use case. Thanks!