Green Power Exchange enables peer-to-peer energy sharing – TechCrunch

True friends share everything, from purses to lawnmowers to the limitless energy they pull from the sun, wind, and deep underground. Green Power Exchange aims to make one of those sharing scenarios a bit simpler.

Green Power Exchange or GPX is running an ICO to create a coin that lets you trade energy. While there are a number of efforts on this front, GPX is fairly far along and already has 62 solar sites signed up to try the tech when it launches. Founder Christian Wentzel sees the project as a solution to the energy monopolies.

“The utility and power company either is a direct or quasi-monopoly, leaving no customer choice,” he said. “We want to change that and save consumers a ton of money while improving the environment.”

“Solar and wind power is cheap, so we want people to use more of it.”

The system essentially greases the wheels of energy trading. Whole current solutions require complex transactions and contracts, this solution lets energy generators sell their excess energy to other people with a minimum of fuss. The team plans to launch in 2019. The have created two coins, the GPX and the GET. The GPX is a liquid coin that can be used to buy and sell power while the GET is tied to the actual generation of energy. You would buy and sell GPX, for example, and manage your energy purchases using the GET token.

GPX’s goals are noble and these sorts of markets are definitely headed toward the blockchain. ” One of the largest barriers to renewable power development in these markets is the complexity of PPA negotiations and the rigidity of the agreements,” said Wentzel. It’s at least clear that something like GPX could help.