Hello Fellow Steemians,
I'm personally very interested about blockchain and cryptocurrencies, but also renewable energies. It is unbelievably cool to see these two disruptive technologies molding together.
Great article on this topic:
chttp://www.the-blockchain.com/2016/07/20/blockchain-driven-smart-grids-ca-decentralise-the-energy-marketplace/
I think the biggest problem for solar energy at smaller scale has been price and false perceptions. This is especially common in Finland, where people think our Nordic geographical location, makes solar energy impossible. The matter of fact is that the amount of solar energy hitting the surface is same as Northern Germany (largest European country producing solar energy). When this false perception starts to shift there will be a positive trend with solar energy.
The second problem in Finland is the main grid. If you want to produce solar energy, even on a small scale for yourself, you need permissions and you need to negotiate with the energy provider. These companies basically have regional monopolies on the electricity grid and therefore all energy distribution.
Third problem is the fact that we (consumers and households) are using our energy during nights (during days 9 to 5 at work). As long as we can't store electricity in a cost-efficient way, it's close to impossible for individual households to get a solar system, that's actually price vice competitive against traditional energy sources.
When we start thinking about decentralized energy production on a community level on smart micro-grids, things start getting interesting. This would completely revolutionize the energy sector. We could increase our energy-efficiency and become self-sustainable on national, regional and community levels. This would drive cost down, but also reduce emissions and make renewables available for more people. People could produce and store energy, trade surpluses and deficits by themselves and also have a decentralized autonomous system to operate all of this. Saw this article and wanted to share my initial thoughts. If you have knowledge in this topic, please feel free to educate me. Would be much appreciated. This will be huge (imo)!
Looking forward to seeing first IRL implementations of these technologies.
All the best to ya'll!
Br,
Martin W.