When energy becomes smart and composable, exciting things happen. The Braid Energy Use Cases below are only samples of what will be built with Braid technology. Please also refer to the Braid Energy Library for a curated list of related articles and research.
Braid’s Smart Energy Use CasBranded Product and Service Energy Integrations
- B2C Branded Energy Products and Collaborations With Consumers
An ambiguous relationship exists between electricity and the products and services it powers. As a result, consumers pay more for energy, emit more greenhouse gasses, and don’t benefit from any sort of B2C collaborations around energy. Old energy networks do almost nothing to decarbonize product use, deliver better energy experiences, help people store and trade energy, or get credit for smart choices that decarbonize households and lifestyles.
Braided Energy networks, on the other hand, are digital and smart and composable. Our smart energy networks can dynamically match, bundle, and package energy into shopping carts, gateways, store shelves, charging stations, and more. This way, energy can become matched to brands, locations, events, communities and so on.
These innovative integrations can provide consumer product Brand Managers with new vectors for consumer loyalty programs, promotions, partnerships, and customer experiences. even fractional Renewable Energy Credits (RECs), earned by brands and corporations in partnership with consumers for emissions avoided during product use.
Virtual Power Plants
Simple, programmatic tweaks to a consumers’s home energy use can save consumers 20-30% on their monthly energy bills while strengthening the grid. Braid’s use of smart contracts can extend VPP composability and functionality, so that energy – used, stored, or shared by consumers- can be bundled, packaged, and used in new ways.
Habit Creation
Simple habit changes can dramatically change consumer energy profiles and decarbonize the use of products and services people depend upon. A Behavioral Economics layer in Braid’s smart energy tech stack graphs user energy lifestyles and household energy habits, to help programmatically help consumers, brands, utilities and consumer benefactors to gently “nudge” changes in habits that optimize energy use and systematically decarbonize the use of consumer products and services.
Renewable Energy Credits
Brands and businesses that help consumers decarbonize their use of branded products and services can share impact attributions and collect renewable energy credits (RECs) alongside the consumers they helped.
This approach creates valuable carbon credit treasuries for brands and corporations, which can be used to offset the carbon from product manufacture and distribution, or gifted to consumers, sold in REC marketplaces, etc.
Importantly, these credits can be incorporated into a brand’s existing consumer loyalty and reward programs, or become the foundation for entirely new reward and programs. For instance, Braid can package specific energy and RECs into consumer products and services, create energy integrations in shopping carts and gateways, and so on.
Distributed Energy Resource (DER) Systems
DSOs, Utilities, VPPs and others can use Braid tech to spin up new networks, enhance old ones, and create network automations and optimizations of all kinds. Strategically, the smart contracts in Braided Energy networks can support ambitious energy AI strategies. The smart contracts in the system can orchestrate and optimize DERs, automate them and spin up ad hoc networks that are software defined.
Distributed energy resources are key to affordable, clean power. In 2035 consumers will hold (store) 1.5 terrawatts of energy. Some say this is more than utilities themselves will produce in 2035 (Deloitte, 2024).
Smart Batteries
Batteries- in EVs appliances, solar systems and so on, can become smart, contracted, programmable network nodes. Braid’s battery energy management and rewards IP uses smart contracts to govern battery use, storage and dispatch.
Braid tracks how the battery is charged, used, the kind of energy it stores (renewable, for instance), and other information to create a detailed record of the battery’s use. This approach supports digital twin strategies, supports “second life” battery lifecycles, and can track battery health and habits over time to increase the residual value of things that use batteries (EVs for instance, or anything that uses batteries).
From a product and service perspective, brands and utilities can specify Braided Batteries in their smart energy networks and product lines, and battery manufacturers can integrate Braid tech into their products on the factory floor.
P2P Energy Transactions
Interparty energy transactions can be facilitated with Braid tech and IP, which is designed to work atop social marketplaces, metaverses, and inside gateways and shopping carts. Many different B2C consumer product and energy collaborations can be formed this way, including brand or utility facilitated peer-to-peer (P2P) consumer energy transactions. This way, packaged energy units and energy credits can be transacted atop multiple consumer platforms, commerce gateways, inside games, social platforms, and more.
Energy and credits can also be packaged and bundled with consumer products, for activation over time, during events, or across extended product lifescyles.
Transaction functions also support bespoke networks and energy marketplaces spun up for specific purposes, audiences, locations, time periods and so on.
Energy Packaging, Bundles and Products/Services
The contracting technology that power Braided networks serves to automate and digitize energy storage, packaging, and bundling. Consumer-facing brands and utilities can compose and package energy to match lifestyles, or match energy to specific consumer product types, locations, events, and so on. This way, energy can be bundled with products and services in carts, at checkout, on the road, and so on.
AI Automation and Optimization
The use of smart contracts in smart energy systems can become a centerpiece of advanced AI energy strategies. Because smart contracts act like software, they can be used alongside AI to compose new networks, make existing ones more efficient, and perhaps even create new energy products and services.
To be clear, Braid is not supplying the AI part of this solution today, but is exploring partnerships to do so in the future.
Please reach out to learn more about our work in this area, or refer to Braid Energy Library to find out more about AI and smart contracts.
Battery Makers and OEMs
Braid Energy’s smart energy network technology can integrate into batteries and energy equipment makers product lines, at the chipset level.Entire product lines can be built this way, so that the batteries in consumer products become contracted, distributed, composable assets that can be programmed to do many things. Extended customer relationships, better energy experiences and more energy collaborations atop products and services, EVs, appliances, power walls, branded consumer VPPs and so on.
Marketplaces and Integrations
Braid IP and technology can support or create many types of customized energy markets and product integrations. Examples include markets for renewable energy, energy credits, P2P and B2C trades, and those yet to be imagined.
Please reach out to learn more.