Why You Should Invest in SolarCoin
What is SolarCoin?
Around 3 months ago, one of my friends introduced me to a cryptocurrency called SolarCoin that incentivizes those who generate electricity using solar energy. According to the SolarCoin website, "§1 SolarCoin represents 1 MWh of solar electricity generation." With solar energy use rising everyday, SolarCoin definitely has a bright future! I personally think SolarCoin is a great long term investment and the community has been very active in producing awesome projects! At the beginning of 2016, a new SolarCoin project called ElectricChain announced its goal for the community to come together and help find ways to use solar energy data on the SolarCoin blockchain, you can view the announcement here.
The SolarCoin logo
Why I think SolarCoin is a good long term investment
I believe that SolarCoin is a good long term investment for multiple reasons:
- Solar energy usage is increasing, the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA) states that over the past decade solar has "experienced an annual compound growth rate of 60%" [1].
Chart from the SEIA showing solar energy growth
- The cost of installing solar panels is becoming cheaper.
- SolarCoin is supporting a good cause, solar energy helps the environment by reducing harmful emissions caused by methods such as burning coal.
- The community is full of very intelligent people such as the CEO Nick Gogerty who has a strong background in financial management.
How to get SolarCoins
There are two ways to acquire SolarCoins: 1) To send your solar energy generation data to the SolarCoin Foundation in return for SolarCoins 2) To buy them through an exchange such as Bittrex or Poloniex. You can estimate the value of your SolarCoin claim here.
The safest place to hold SolarCoins is on a local SolarCoin wallet on your computer, this will avoid losses in the case that the exchange that you bought them from goes down.
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References
[1] "Solar Industry Data" from the SEIA at http://www.seia.org/research-resources/solar-industry-data visited on August 15, 2016.
I've wanted to get solar setup and accumulate solar coins since I've been doing this. Been a dream of mine of sorts for a while. Someday I guess.
If you are looking to install solar on your home now is a great time and it is easy to see if it makes sense financially. Where do you live? (The obvious answer is Vegas)
Great info, i'll add it to my coinlist, thanks to steemit i invested in egc and made some bucks, so this could be my next big shot!
@nphacker- thanks for the great writeup about SolarCoin and ElectriCChain. Lots of interesting projects going on in the ecosystem. Like for example "InstaGrid_100W4all", where we make self propagating solar powered insta grids that can be self deployed anywhere on the planet and pay in SolarCoin and other tokens. Great work! Thanks -lpninja
In order for SolarCoin to have a value that is determined by the renewable energy it represents, an economic model needs to be created that models the scarcity of solarenergy, to the supply and demand mechanics of solarcoin.
As an example, solar panels are connected to a device that tracks the power generated from said panels. This device is a smart device which serves two purposes.
Note, it's not doing anything computationally expensive as that would severely negate the purpose of using solar panels in the first place, only to waste it on creating and giving some coins some inherent baseline value.
Instead, it is merely there to act like a cryptographic verification of actual energy being produced from solar panels.
Now, back to point 1, we can't actually do anything right now that can prove the energy generated comes from solar panels because anybody with an electrical engineering degree can just take the device apart and plug in terrestrial electricity into the device and 'mine' a whole bunch of solar coins.
But, you get my drift.
Also, the market would have to largely all rely on solar power for this to really have any advantage over any other coin.
for what is worth the solarcoin team is talking with one of the world's largest tech firms....you may have used them for search recently, wont' say more. They have a solar project that can assess roofs for solar potential, it can also use satellites to monitor for panel presence and size thus imputing nameplate capacity....yes someone could paint panels on their roof but...
As far as I am concerned, any such rumours I will consider them as for the purpose of manipulation and ultimately greed.
All I have said, is that SolarCoin has barely any economic sustenance to actual Solar Energy. There is also no underlying tech that solves any underlying problems.
Effectively, SolarCoins are held centrally, and distributed to people who show they 'might' use solar panels to generate some electricity. That's it.
End of story.
I think there will always be those one or two people that try to game the system one way or another but they don't really have a lasting impact on the state of the system in the long run and definitely will not be the majority. I am a strong believer in karma, if they are trying to cheat the system one way or another it will catch back up to them haha.
~ Np
Yes -and there is also localized voting based on input irradiance datasets/microclimates to pre-predict output kWh Energy on the local scale, this will stop. It's something we've put 4000 engineering hours into so far. Once machine learning kicks in as planned these gamers are found out within about 1-3 minutes and they've just been flagged for the next 20-years of trying to claim their SolarCoin reward. Their loss, yes and @nphacker is correct, their SolarCoin Karma has gone. Another point, SolarCoin community is working on the hard problem of making the whole system decentralized over the medium term using the latest technologies.
This is a new addition to my cryptocurrency list. It's a pity that I live in an apartment and I have no chance to generate my own solar energy. But for people who have that possibility, it's an excellent option because it allows you to earn extra money by generating your own electricity.
And the earnings can be exchanged for Bitcoin in an exchange.
The key that this is overlooking is the investment in actually installing solar on homes and businesses. The financial sense is there as well as the environmental impact and the fact that, like crypto currency in general, it is decentralized power!
Based on their model if you have a solar array there is no mining and you're producing your own power. To turn a phrase, 2 birds 1 stone.
how am i only know just hearing about this?
like the discussion you created, thanks. Wondering if there could be a climate treaty in the future where governments could agree to effectively subsidize solar by purchasing these coins as an incentive to producers. Can anyone here elaborate more on the proof of work portion?
@jeffkurzon - proof of work is that you demonstrate you have ownership of the solar installation (installation certificate, installer invoice, meter readings etc). Your solar panels then do the work. At present the SolarCoin Foundation is estimating your installation's production, work is afoot to connect actual readings to the blockchain and then hence to issuing SLRs based on those readings. @scalextrix 's blog has more...