Blog·Core ideas

Introducing The Energy Network

Part 2 of 5·Published on 11 Sept 2024

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We need to make energy clean, affordable, and abundant. We need to do it now. The Energy Network is built to both incentivise the transition to net zero, and to make it effortless.

The goal of the project is to build the world's largest decentralised energy network, a virtual power plant with 1 TW of global renewable capacity. We're building a suite of products designed to streamline the net-zero transition, and a token-based economic system to incentivise action now.

Putting Power in Your Hands – The Energy Network Product Suite

Our products are built and released by Fuse, a vertically integrated renewable energy company from the same team. We're building a product suite that wraps up the complexity of the net-zero transition into a set of simple, distributed, rewardable actions. The core features of the project are the following:

1. Renewable electricity – The goal of Fuse Energy is to build 1 TW of combined physical and virtual renewable power capacity, which will be delivered at a discount to network participants. We have spent a year building real-time electricity billing, which forms the bedrock for more advanced products.
2. Grid support – Use your energy resources, such as solar, battery, and smart thermostats and EV, to export green electricity and shift energy demand. Make the grid greener and more flexible, while earning rewards and discounts.
3. EV charging – We're creating a world-class EV charging product that allows you to easily navigate and pay for public electric charging, while earning for driving your EV. On the other side, we will allow any parking lot owners to easily convert their property into EV charging destinations. Think intelligent EV routing on a global decentralised charging network.
4. Home electrification – We're building a vetted installer marketplace, with standardised installation processes and financing for solar, batteries, EV chargers, and other distributed energy resources. Think Uber Eats for installations and a simple app to manage your energy.

The reality is that there is already a lot of latent desire amongst the community to take these actions. We just need the right incentives to unlock them.

Progress Squared – The Energy Network Growth Cycle

"Show me the incentives, and I'll show you the outcome." — Charlie Munger

One of our key focuses in building the project was to create an economic system that creates a chain where energy users can participate in the value they create for the network and the planet.

Energy Dollar is programmed to be exchanged where energy consumption contributes to the network by diverting consumption to periods that are easier for the grid to cope with. These tokens may then be burned in exchange for discounted solar, battery, EV, energy efficiency upgrades, and incredibly cheap renewable energy.

The growth cycle for The Energy Network is shown below - it is themed around value creation (green) and value capture (blue).

THE ENERGY NETWORK GROWTH CYCLE

Value Creation

As the network grows, more DERs and renewables are deployed. This has an important impact on prices. In electricity markets, generation offers are stacked from lowest to highest price, and the price which meets the required demand sets the price for all electricity sold at that given period (e.g. one hour). As cheaper renewables make up more of the stack, more expensive fossil fuel sources have their offers filled less often, driving their prices up further to recover costs.

Alongside electrification and macro trends pushing demand up, this leads to a widening spread in prices between hours served by renewables and hours served by fossil fuels. This results in a better range of time periods for customers to shift demand out of dirty hours and into clean ones.

Energy Dollar is programmed to reflect these changes to the balance of the grid, and is primarily distributed to contributors based on how closely their actions align with the objectives of this system. Energy Dollar is not guaranteed to maintain any particular value. Its value may go up or down due to market conditions and other factors, and you could get back less than you expect. Discounts, rewards or other benefits linked to Energy Dollar may change or be withdrawn.

Value Capture

As more demand is shifted by the network, this benefits the environment and the grid, resulting in cleaner and lower cost electricity. Depending on token value, token burning would allow users to then access lower energy bills and other cost savers on the network. This can contribute toward solar and battery DER installations, potentially aiding token activity and demand and correspondingly improving those tokens’ ability to participate in such network activities.

Next Steps

We have now raised $170m across two funding rounds from top-tier investors including Multicoin Capital, Accel, Lowercarbon Capital, Balderton, and others.

We see The Energy Network as being the de facto scaling layer for grid systems worldwide, and the project token to support a common, globally adopted currency and settlement layer for all things energy.

A future exists where renewable progress is not choked by outdated grid infrastructure, where the electrification of our economies is not to the detriment of our climate, and where people have control and autonomy over their energy use and production, with energy being clean, affordable, and abundant for all.

To stay in the loop with The Energy Network as well to find what more we have on offer at Fuse Energy, visit our X account @fuseenergy