Internet of Energy(IOEN) AMA Summary Recap with Shin Chan Community
We held a live AMA with CEO, Adam Bumpus from Internetofenergy on 30th Thursday 6:00 PM (UTC+8). Here’s the recap for those who missed it.
Introduction
Mika|ShinChan: Welcome to our channel, Before the ama start, can you please introduce yourself and the team background?
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: Sure… I’m Adam and I’m the CoFounder and of IOEN.
I’m from a clean energy innovation and climate change solutions background
I have worked in this area for 20 years as a consultant to the UN, World Bank, and large companies to deliver energy solutions globally.
So I’m a climate change solutions nerd ;0
Then In 2018, I co-founded RedGrid, now one of Australia’s leading energy software companies.
My co founders are amazing
Simon CTO of IOEN spent over ten years working with leading Australian banks in both domestic and global capacities. This included a position at the National Australian Bank (NAB), as their joint lead for blockchain technology and strategy.
He’s also the lead and co-founder of the Global Impact Fintech ThinkTank (GIFT) that operates in 68 Countries.
Alex has been the blockchain space since 2015, leading the marketing and communications strategy at RedGrid
And David Atkinson, is our Strategic Lead. David is one of the earliest members of the Holochain team, and has worked as the Holochain strategic director.
Mika|ShinChan: the team has such strong experience in the industry really an eye opener
Mika|ShinChan: Is there anything else you can share us the update/news from Internetofenergy
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: Within the next 24 hours we will be announcing our IDO date!
This has been a long time in the making and so we are really excited about this
Other news, we have a really great line of partners that we are announcing — in DeFi, electric vehicles, energy, and great crypto-energy use cases 🙂
So yes, please stay tuned and join our TG channel to get more info
AMA Twitter Section Begins:
Q1. IOEN Tech is built on Holochain platform. Why are you using Holochain? Compared to BSC, Solana, Polygon, what advantages does Holochain have in terms of privacy, scalability and efficiency? Especially when it comes to energy storage and consumption, how good is Holochain?
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: OK cool, great question.
Hmmm, so its actually not quite the right comparison. An innovation from IOEN is it is a hybrid blockchain/Holochain system.
Imagine two levels connected together:
in the Blockchain Level we have Layer 1 which is Ethereum/ERC-20. We chose this because of its rich ecosystem of developers and tools to create solid smart contracts.
Then for Layer 2 we have Polygon at it enables low gas fees for multiple transactions at once. (We are super happy to be building on Polygon — great stack, excellent options 🙂 )
Lastly, for Layer 3 there are various DeFi protocols that offer liquidity pools and maintain a healthy, transparent treasury.
So the Blockchain Level is where the IOEN token lives. You can imagine this going up from layer 1 to 3
Now… imagine going below all this to the Holochain level. Holochain is not a blockchain; it is a peer-to-peer distributed framework.
It also isn’t a token, it is a crypto accounting system called “mutual credits” (which are actually an ancient means of trade, used by merchants for hundreds of years).
Each microgrid, or virtual microgrid, has its own credit system; it can copy from others in IOEN, but it can also customise to its unique circumstances.
For example, a microgrid in Mali may need special wallets built on mobile or satellite phones. But this would be different for a microgrid in Thailand which may have a community battery
This is really important: IOEN ERC-20 provides financial liquidity; the local credit provides an accounting mechanism to enable trade of energy and energy use value (‘balancing’) to enable more clean energy to come into the grid.
Also, Holochain is not mined, and does not require consensus (although your application can add it if it makes sense for that application).
AND Energy usage is negligible (very very low). In fact, IOEN is looking at connecting solar panels and batteries to cryptocurrency mining rigs for a self-contained microgrid.
And finally, Holochain is agent-based. This is a HUGE innovation
It means the device controls its own data. Agent-based is how Nature works, which allows for massive scaleability without any central authority (like a beehive 🐝 , or an anthill 🐜 ).
Please see here for more info:
Mika|ShinChan: interesting need to deep dive in to find out more =)
Q2. According to your project information, IOEN Tech is an interconnected system of many grids that facilitate transactions within and between local energy systems. My question is, what energy systems does your project mainly focuses? And what are your plans for expansion?
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: Super question
So IOEN is all about clean energy.
The world has tipped… renewable energy is now the cheapest form of energy IOEN is a mission-based organisation to provide clean energy for all, at extremely low operating costs.
everyone has the right to clean, affordable, reliable energy and that’s what we want to bring to the world through crypto-energy innovation
So where do we focus…
We already have projects running here in Australia and we are looking at new global projects as well! Australia is a great place for us to start testing our technology because it is at the forefront of renewable energy.
Really it is a global solution because (as said above) it is locally specific
Solar and wind, combined with massive advances in battery storage in the past few years, are ideal for microgrids: small, self-sufficient economies with producers, consumers and storage of energy.
But actually our technology can form virtual microgrids without solar or batteries in your house, infact it can use your air conditioner, heater, fridge, washing machine… etc. all the things you already use :0
We take many different signals (oracles) and help optimse you use your energy when the grid is greenest… so everyone can take part
Of course as more people get solar and batteries there is more that can be done… and we are at the forefront of this
Australia leads the world in the per capita roll out of solar and wind systems deployed (by 10x!) and we already have 2.8 million households with household solar.
This has allowed us to develop a technology that enables rapid change and access to renewable energy, once it is deployed.
So the energy systems are the ones already in your house plus the emerging systems, all over the world, that include household appliances and new energy resources like solar and batteries 🙂
Q3. A strong community not only brings interesting ideas to the project but also attracts larger partners. So how #IOEN planning to build its community? And is there a plan to recruit people with Blockchain experience to the #IOEN team?
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: Great
I agree entirely
For sure we are recruiting (we even have job postings out now 🙂 )
When you read our white paper, you will see there is still a need for blockchain expertise, especially in the growing areas of NFTs and DeFi, at the macro level.
We also invite developers to check out Holochain, which runs periodic DevCamps and has a strong community that cares for the planet.
Our CTO Simon has always insisted that the power of IOEN comes from being open source.
Check this out from 2019:
https://medium.com/internet-of-energy-network/an-open-source-ecology-of-energy-a61c90693e39
A video that covers why we think open source for energy is so important, and why mutual credit is so important to enable it
Plus there’s a fun clapping game at the beginning of the video 👏🏼 😉
Mika|ShinChan: yes it is to extend our planets life we need to find all means to save it =)
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: yes!
We, as IOEN, are bottom-up, grassroots, with the goal that everyone can control their energy, just like how bitcoin disrupted the financial system by getting people to ask “what is money, really?”.
We want you to ask “what is energy? and how can we use an abundance of it? What if we had more clean energy than we knew what to do with? How could people create new things? Help each other? Protect what is important?”
because that is what you get with wind and solar.. and an interconnected system of virtual microgrids 🙂
To deal with climate change and get energy access for all we are on a ticking countdown clock…
Open source is essential because it unleashes the creativity and ingenuity of all around the world.
We can’t wait to see what people will do with it 🌐☀️🤩⚡️
Q4. Your project name is too long why did you choose Internetofenergy name for your project? What does it mean?
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: That’s a great question. I appreciate the honesty 🙂
OK, so what do we use all day everyday without even thinking about it (apart from air, water etc.)?
the internet
We don’t even think about it, but when you do it blows your mind
The things that make the internet… well, the internet, are its protocols and operating routes
Its called TCP/IP… and its the mechanism that allows all the packets of information to get to where they need to get to without clogging it up
Its pretty wild
so… this question is actually a great chance for us to draw the analogy of the internet of information
We see the internet of energy system enabling the same seismic change that the internet of information brought to the world, but in the context of energy
Can you even imagine not having the internet? No, its crazy.
In 15 years time we hope people will be thinking can you even imagine not having the internet of energy? 🙂
Mika|ShinChan: its a mind blowing development as internet links everyone from all over the world, we wont be here without internet =)
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: yes exactly — it brings community together and it enables incredible economic and innovation development
Also add to that the internet of information became so widely adopted and changed the world in immeasurable ways mostly because it was open source, for everyone to see, use, adapt and make better- just like IOEN.
we’re excited
SO to answer… the name really symbolises the similar seismic change we hope to achieve with IOEN and the attributes of openness that the internet inherently possesses.
Plus IOEN is pronounced “ion” like an atom that carries a positive charge
So you can just call us IOEN “ion” 😎
Q5. I’ve read that it requires an annual investment of $500 billion for the grid to integrate the renewable energy needed to provide clean energy. How will this be met for zero emissions?
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: So about $500bn will be needed in developing countries to support their conditional approaches under the paris agremeemnt for emissions reductions
On average, for the rest of the world, its almost USD 110 billion per year.
These are from IRENA in their Renewable Energy Outlook
Needless to say, its a lot of money. A LOT.
SO how do we do it? The challenge really is how fast can we do it?
Right now the money is moving too slowly
Why? Because the channeling of money into large infrastructure projects and macro grid updates takes time and lots of top down organisation
But, what if the solution came from many, distributed power centres, that could be “islands” if required? That is the IEC definition of a microgrid (see the Wikipedia article on microgrids, it is quite good for new players).
Well we could get around the problems of existing old grids.
The trouble with ‘the grid’ (as in the existing national grids and century old infrastructures that push electricity from central sites to your house) is that it was never designed for decentralised power sources.
So we need more clean energy to get to net zero emissions
But we also need to be able to integrate those sources
Right now in australia we have SO MUCH solar power that grid is sometimes turning them off because it can’t handle them.
crazy!
The issue is not that there is not enough energy, it is its coordination that is blocking us at the moment. IOEN is about getting funding and resources to get as many microgrids up as fast as possible.
So we use the financial power of crypto — add in defi, multiple layers for liquidity and incentives — and combine it with a local mutual credit system thay incentivises clean energy integration, and BOOM — we get the ability to channel new finance into driving to net zero by 2030.
Its a huge challenge, but we think the time, technology, and appetite of the world is ready for it.
So lets DO IT together! 🙏😎
Q6. There are many very successful blockchain projects with the same ideas as IOEN, so can you tell us the difference between IOEN and those projects? Do you feel confident that IOEN will have some outstanding features compared to those projects to attract users?
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: Good question, and there are some great other projects doing good things. So here’s a bit about how we are different
IOEN brings concepts together in unique ways
• It is a hybrid blockchain-Holochain solution, use the best characteristics of each to provide an architecture that can breath and quickly grow
• It takes this architecture and combines cryptoeconomics and energy to unlock funding for people-centric energy projects
• It combines a ‘macroDAO’ with ‘miniDAOs’.. an automated means to establish the ‘rules of the game’ tailored for each individual microgrid or microgrid project. Throughout this paper we refer to the IOEN currency and many IOEC credit systems. Each IOEC can be appropriate for that Community.
• Importantly, the local level is 100% distributed, based on agent-based architectures found in Nature. Please visit our website for articles on this fascinating approach of biomimetics.
* IOEN is an open architecture, which means it is extensible and accommodates multiple paths for the token. For example, if Solana proves to better suit the blockchain part of the architecture, we would consider using that, side-by-side, with Ethereum at layer 1. We are already considering multiple layer 3 DeFi services. Another example for layer 1 may be to use Holochain at that layer.
Finally… IOEN provides this as an open source project, to give the power back to developers, communities, individuals, and even smart devices themselvs as we all race to avert the more serious impacts of climate change and provide reliable, accessible, clean energy for all!
Telegram Live AMA Begins:
Q6. Can You Please tell us in Brief about the MICROGRID , and Is the IOEN (The Internet of Energy Network) Just about the MICROGRIDS Or you have also another Use Cases ?
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: So a grid can be formed of even just 3 devices, so it could be just your home talking with another home, and the larger grid itself. Very flexible 🙂
Q7. Is the IOEN Governance model enables participants to propose and vote , What are the Various matters on which Community Mambers Can Vote , How Can a User become the Part of Community Voting of IOEN ?
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: Great que — by staking tokens people can play a role in the governance of IOEN. This will emerge as we develop and move toward being a full DAO (in time)
Q8. People have gradually started to adopt energy projects. What role does IOEN play in public services in Australia? Are there any new projects that join the IOEN platform, so do you get enough support? What kind of a bridge will the IOEN project be between DeFi and the energy market?
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: so we are working with public bodies here like the government and have fuunding to deploy IOEN tech with exciting projects like community batteries 🙂
Q9. There are 3 core issues prevalent in crypto and blockchain: Security, Interoperability, and Scalability. How does Your Project plan to overcome these issues?
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: with our hybrid blockchain-holochain solution. Very important — please see our medium for technical answers
Q10. Can You tell me What Important Role Does REDGRID had Played in the IOEN Ecosystem and What is the Relationship between IOEN and REDGRID ?
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: great que. They are separate entitites, but RG has been developing the embryonic technology to deliver IOEN. IOEN is not for profit and open source, and RedGrid is the for profit arm that makes it easy to use
Q11. How will IEON achieve its goal of integrating 100 Minigrids into the platform?
Do you have a global partner, such as (GIFT) to expand the project to all corners?
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: Great! So we are looking for partners all over the world to help us. We want people to use the protocol, work with us to develop it, and make it locally applicable. We are forming partnerships — like GIFT.- everyday who share our values and approach to delivering this technology.
Q12. Is there any incentive when running a node other than securing and decentralizing the network?
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: YES! Nodes as validators will earn IOEN tokens (or IOEC currency)! This bootstraps the network. Pls see the whitepaper
Q13. What idea did you guys have to found IOEN? Is there a story that’s hard to forget?
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: great question. The combination of all of our care and willingness to do something hard that has meaning, and our love for technology and empowerment of people through decentralisation. That and we all love to ski/snowboard but we haven’t had a chance to go togehter yet (too busy with work!!)
Q14. I see IOEN has mainly Focused kn EU countries like Germany & Netherlands,
How Can IOEN technology can Be used in those areas? Do You have plan to expand in Asian & African Countries?
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: so right now we are deploying in Austraila but have strong partnerships emerging in the EU, middle east, and Asia. BUT we think that Africa is a huge opportunity and so are opening new partnerships there as it emerges. Stay tuned!
Q15. What is the connection method where users can connect Internetofenergy to their appliances? Will they create an application to be downloaded through mobile devices to facilitate the connection directly to local energy?
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: great! The simplest is just a mobile wallet in an app that you can use to see when your electricity is green or not… the next is a simple cheap smart plug which runs our software (cheap about US$5), and then it can be in any smart electrical device you have, as long as we can have an API access or embed our code. More and more devices will be accredited by IOEN so more will be available over time
Q16. Though clean energy is cheap, but the financial and operational architecture of where and when it is produced and used isn’t sophisticated enough to provide it to all people fast enough. Could you tell us the solution IOEN Tech has developed to help address this problem? How will you help address the issue of integration which seems to be the major problem?
Adam Bumpus|IOEN: V good question. There are some very technical reasons, but the quick answer is that intelligence at the device level means that a dynamic marketplace can emerge using microtransactions to guide how new energy sources are used, basically that if devices know there’s clean energy, then they can use it.
But bigger than that, people want cheaper more reliable energy, so lets provide a system that is simple and allows everyone to take part, even if they don’t have solar. In this way we are all on the journey together, and we all benefit from being on the same system… just like the internet
-End-
