Blockchain Use Case: Affordable and Sustainable Energy | Interview with Dan Bates

Please introduce yourself to the cointelegraph world and tell them what you do.

Will do. My name is Dan Bates. I have a company called Impact ppa. We do renewable energy all over the world, specifically to developing nations. So we're bringing light to people who either have never had it or they have been without it, like what we're doing in Haiti.

Okay, and how are you bringing, how are these systems developed? Is it very rudimentary or are these a complex system on the ground?

Simple. It's wind and solar, it could be hydro, it could be anything. People need energy. Energy gives rise to education, it gives rise to a better quality of life. Right. So it doesn't matter what it is. We've got to figure out what that solution needs to be for that community, for that person, and then allow that to be developed with consensus from the community, from the blockchain community. And then we manage that energy generation and allow people to now pay as you go. Basically, all done on the blockchain.

So I'm curious about that. I've done research in Lao, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, emerging nations. And the challenge that I've found, how do you distribute when you receive this energy from a solar installation, how are you managing the consumption and the distribution of that energy and in these remote areas? Right, right.

It's a challenge. Okay. A lot of times we go into a community that doesn't have anything, so we might do distributed installations on rooftops, on backyards, whatever it might be. But typically, more and more what we're doing is micro grids. You know, for instance, I'm finishing up a project in Haiti. They got hit really hard in 2016 by Hurricane Matthew. Two and a half years later, they're still without power. So we put 150 kilowatts or so on the ground, connecting to a grid that used to exist before the hurricane. So we're using those lines and then we're connecting to smart meters that we put on the home, we put on the business where it might be. That smart meter then controls the flow of energy. So someone could buy power on their cell phone. Now, really, as they need it, they have a little app, very simple to use. You buy power a day, a week, a month.

What. If you don't mind, if you can speak to this, what platforms are you using to power this back end? So using Ethereum.

Right now we're on Ethereum.

Okay, fantastic.

And it's working.

Okay. How are you tokenizing?

How are you? How.

Explain to me the actual model, the economy model, and at the End of the day, is it being distributed back into the community. So just walk me through that.

All right, so we've got a token model. We call it the mpac. Of course, our company name is Impact ppa. So we call the token the mpaq. The mpac, that is a value token that we distribute to the token purchasers, people who want to do good, who want to, you know, support projects all over the world. They believe that there will be value in the MPAC token in the long run. So that is what is used to finance projects. And then in the market, wherever we might be, whether it's throughout Africa or Latin America, Caribbean, India, we then distribute what we call a Gen token, the Gen credit. So somebody buys it with Fiat. It's like a, it's like a burner. Right?

Okay.

You need more data, you need more minutes on your phone, you just scratch it off and you put in the code. Right. Same kind of model, but now it's for electricity. Are you familiar with M Pesa?

Absolutely.

Familiar with M Pesa, Decentralized M Pesa for electricity. That's what we do.

Really? Really. So will you have a central hub? Essentially has M Pesa this for our followers. You know, M Pesa they created, basically I would say it's an off the grid banking system. So I love the off the grid, the platform. Is there a way that the local economy can benefit from these tokens? If they incorporate mining facilities, let's say somehow.

Well, yes. The easy answer is yes. The difficult answer is how are we going to do that logistically? Right. If you're going to go into a rural community in India and try and teach them to become minors might be a little challenging. Right. But the Gen Token will be distributed to those who need it, who need power.

How are you qualifying someone who needs power where sometimes they may want to take on the power themselves and distribute it?

Well, what we're doing is we're making, we're trying to democratize energy. Okay. So it would be in their incentive to move Gen Token than trying to recreate the wheel. That's what we're doing.

Right.

And that empowers people. Right. There will be people out there who are, call it marketing the Gen Token, who are out there moving that token.

Around, educating to others exactly how they can.

And we expect them to be trading it. This could be, this can be an energy currency.

Are you finding that the education in some of the emerging nations we spoke about needs to be amplified to meet the blockchain and crypto scans? Because we're moving so quickly.

They are not going to know that there's a blockchain back end. As we get this going, they see a simple app on their phone that says I need power. This is the address of my smart meter. And it's very simple because I can't expect people who are, who have no education, no formal education to say I am going to be a crypto trader. Now that's not going to happen. That's a non starter for all these guys.

Right.

So we'll just have a very simple app. They press a button, they hit go, they get power.

Okay. Okay. It's pretty interesting. No, we had. I don't know if you. We were just on speaking in another panel and inclusion seem to be an interesting topic. And accountability folks are saying that just because blockchain makes it transparent, it doesn't make it. The byproduct is not always truth.

Mm.

How are you mitigating the challenges on the ground with these countries and their perception of outside influences coming in and saying they will help but they're not being held accountable?

Okay, so that was the core of this whole idea. Right. I've done work in the renewable energy industry for the last 10 years and I work in developing worlds. That means there's boots on the ground in Ghana and Kenya and India and places that are underserved. Right. They are not going to get a solar farm. The World bank ain't gonna fund it. Or if they are, and maybe they will, it takes years to get that through that process. So my original concept, the company concept was let's change that model. Let's democratize project finance so people who have the ability to do good now have a voice in what happens in the world that puts stuff renewables. You know, it could be cold storage for food. Right. We're doing a project now where we're going to basically light up a fish packing facility that's been dark for two and a half years and all of those people in the community will now have a job again because they had no way to keep the fish cold, so they shut it down.

So in 2018, let the Cointelegraph audience know your low end prediction and your craziest prediction for blockchain and crypto.

Wow, that's a tough one. All right, so the low end is that, and I don't want to sound disparaging at all that we keep continuing to talk. That's the low end. The high end is let's get these projects launched. Let's just stop talking and go do it.

Okay.

That's what I'm doing.

Okay. I appreciate it. Thank you for taking the time with us.

My pleasure, man.

Thank you, man. Thank you.