EVENT REVIEW — A fun and knowledgeable Q&A session on our Telegram chat group
On 5th May, Apollochain’s core team had a 1 hour Q&A session in our Telegram chat group. Loads of interesting and valuable question & answers were collected. We summarised these contents and would like to share them here, for making you guys have a deeper understanding towards Apollochain. It was also the very first time these electric power experts shared their experience and knowledge.
The following content presents what we had discussed in our Q&A session, where you will find answers from our CEO Craig Nalder, COO Charles Allen, Sales Director Roman Voloshin, and Marketing Operation Prometheus:
What is your feeling about the project so far? When do you plan finishing smart meter engineering? Which month?
Prometheus: so far so good! Everything is going well and we have many things on hand to process. What do you think about this project boss?
Craig: Apollochain is an exciting development. We have an excellent team and the timing is right for energy to participate in the decentralised economy.
Prometheus: As you can see the physical structure of our meter has already finished, though it’s a prototype and we are still doing some commissioning. Another critical thing left is the software like systems and blockchain deployement. We hope to clear things up by the Q4 of 2018.
Hi, Craig. When will Apollochain be on Exchange? And the issuing price?
Craig: We are in negotiation with about 5 exchanges, receiving advice and analysing the best exchange and method of listing. Details will be released as they become available.
Prometheus: Issuing price is going to be USD 0.5/APL
Do you have any strategy to avoid price slump once APL token listed on the first Exchange?
Prometheus: Yes we do. Loads of experts had discussions with us and we do obtained sufficient experience and knowledge to deal with it. Also we are a very “down-to-earth” project, and we believe we are hard to be knocked out.
Craig: APL is a limited supply and release will be gradual with lock up periods for founders. We are working with experienced advisors to implement strategies to retain and grow value. Electricity markets require long term investments and some APL will be used to support infrastructure assets with balance sheet value and 30yr+ life cycles. We are planning to build a long term sustainable business to support structural changes to deregulated energy markets.
Sounds good. But have you ever considered to cover the wholesale market as well?
Craig: This is key. We will link to innovative finance structures to support the development of new generation, participation in wholesale derivative markets and applications to pay retail bills and P2P transactions.
Are you the only project leader of Apollochain?
Craig: Apollochain is supported by an extensive team of experienced technical and market experts with global experience and broad scope. In fact, the four leaders in the Australian team have over 100yrs combined experience in energy development and trading, financial markets and company leadership.
What’s the most beneficial aspect you believe Apollochain would bring to the current energy market?
Craig: Efficiency. Energy markets support layers of inefficient infrastructure and process. The taxi industry in Australia was disrupted by Uber. Licence plates could cost up to $600k each and this constituted a large proportion of taxi fares. Uber created a platform to allow individuals with idle assets to exchange services. We plan to be like the Uber of energy.
How will you manage to realise electricity transmission off the main net? I don’t think solar panels can store too much energy?
Craig: Pilot projects will focus on embedded networks and new property developments. We will move to peer to market transactions and use blockchain to allow crowd funding of generation assets. Apollochain will not replace the grid. The grid is still required to transport utility scale power to existing consumers.
How does your smart meter integrate into the current smart meter system installed by the gov in Aus, will it replace it, or work before it? What if any, obstacles do you see coming from the Aus gov with this project?
Charles: There are basic standards that smart meters much meet which are regulated by the Australian energy market operator. Any additional capabilities can be added on top.
Craig: Energy is considered an essential service and makes up one of the largest industries in the global economy. A platform that allows the decentralised exchange of information relating to energy is a very, very big market.
Charles: Our will meet the basic standards plus include additional feature to all for more customer flexibility.
How are you going to compete with some leading competitors?
Craig: I understand that our current competitors mainly focus on very small embedded networks (trailer parks and retirement homes). We will compete in this small market. But, our focus is to provide access to the wholesale markets, financial markets and access to generation investments.
Charles: There are approximately 7 million meters suitable for the APL approach which is not limited to embedded networks.
Craig: Hyper-liquidity in local markets will sustain the value of APL more than disparate demand from markets with no real use for APL. Speculation is inevitable, particularly in early stages. But, we have a long term vision to support a sustainable market and Australia has many advantages as a launch pad.
(1/2) Will you build your own power plant or look for partners? And who will be able to offer energy on your platform? For example I buy energy on your platform and where I live without power lines, do you support me to install them?
Craig: Apollochain is a platform to facilitate the exchange of energy related information. It will support innovative financial structures to fund power developments, but power development is not our core business.
(2/2) I was more thinking in terms of the supply of ultra cheap power to the business in that location.
Craig: Apollochain will assist in more efficient communication that facilitates better signals for utilising idle assets, time value of energy and providing more efficient investment signals. I.e. better utilisation of existing infrastructure (eg. idle assets like Uber). Technology advances in lower cost renewable energy and storage will only increase liquidity and improve this value proposition.
In real terms, as a power consumer, how long are we looking before I can buy one of your units, have it installed, and benefit from that supply and start trading? 1–2 years? 2–5 years?
Charles: If you are in Australia then 18 months. Sooner for pilot sites.
Roman: Yes. If all starts align it will be sooner.
Investors like myself expect APL to grow in price. How will that happen and what will make it happen in the Apollochain project/business model?
Prometheus: Sure. So at the very beginning, we release tokens for financing purpose but we have no installed capacities on our platform. As the project progressing, the installed capacity of solar power stations on our blockchain shall fulfill the gap.
With more and more users join Apollochain platform, the total APL circulation and the installed capacity at a point of time shall reach to an equilibrium.
After that, you’ll see more installed projects but only a certain number of APL, so value is increasing.
This is the mechanism designed for our token. Well of course our new updates or progress would influence our price once we were on an exchange.
Craig: Good question. People will use Apollochain because it is a more efficient way to buy and sell electricity in deregulated markets. It will succeed for the same reason Uber is more popular than taxis. Apollochain provides a technical platform (smart meters, smart contracts embedded in block chain and a financial market) that people can use to exchange information relating to energy consumption and production directly with each other, directly with the wholesale market and directly with generators.
Currently, we are not aware of any direct competition that is offering all of these services. If there is, it is highly unlikely they have a technical team with as much blockchain experience/success and an energy trading/power development team with as much successful entrepreneurial experience as Apollochain.
Craig: Traditional power grids in developed countries were built over 50yrs ago by Governments using old technologies, centralised generation and little regard for efficiency as pricing was based on a regulated cost plus model. Deregulated markets have developed competitive market structures that allow new models to emerge.
Lower cost of micro-generation (like solar PV), enable the average consumer to now be a producer. Falling battery costs will allow flexible consumption/generation profiles to emerge in response to floating wholesale prices and bilateral markets in deregulated energy markets. However, a platform to enable this exchange hasn’t existed, until now.
Apollochain provides a platform for “prosumers” to access the wholesale market and trade energy information with each other. The decentralised market needs a financial system to support this new market and apollochain has been developed specifically for this purpose. Our smart meters will be equipped with blockchain technology that stores smart contracts enabling real time energy trading to occur.
Thanks Craig, is there a comparison sheet between POWR, WePower and ElectrifyAsia and any other competitors in energy space I don’t know about?
Craig: Our main competitor is the existing centralised market in each jurisdiction. These companies will come and go and provide localised solutions and we welcome competition. Maybe they will utilise our meters and APL to support their business models in the future. We are analysing the business models of these companies and others like Powerledger and LO3. We are adapting the aspects we like as our platform and smart contracts are flexible and capable of implementing a very wide range of market models.
Roman: All of the known programs are based on Micro grid trading between users and small generators by facilitating energy transactions. We on the other hand improving on this model by adding own generation in the mix and being technology agnostic allows us to deliver best outcomes for each geographical location.
Therefor making our platform more stable and financially viable.
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