JANUARY 2018

SPAIN
Blockchain offers competitive advantage to renewable energy co-ops
A team of Spanish engineers is developing
a Blockchain platform to enable renewable
energy co-ops to exchange the power
they generate.
The Pylon Network wants to create the
first open, renewable energy exchange
community. Its users will be able to
exchange green energy, bought directly
from renewable energy co-ops.
To exchange the power generated from
solar panels using the decentralised
platform, Pylon Network has created its
own cryptocurrency – Pylon Coin.
The network’s reward system is based
around servers called “green miners”,
said Gerard Bel, one of the founders of
Pylon Network.
“The green miners are like servers
validating transactions,” he explained.
“As in the case of Bitcoin, the miners are
big computers which solve the algorithm
to secure the data,” he added.
A start-up working for energy solutions,
Pylon Network was formed three years
ago but only took off in 2016.
Me Bel said the technology means
users can constantly monitor their energy
consumption and be charged based on
a “live” electricity price; this enables
them to modify their energy habits to
avoid consumption during high-price
pThe team hope to expand their operation to other countries
periods, reducing the cost of electricity for
the co-operative.
To finance the project, Pylon Network
launched an initial token sale of
Blockchain cryptocurrency. It will now
run a pilot project with a renewable energy
co-op in the Basque Country, Goiener
Cooperative. The pilot will last for one
year, with a limited number of customers.
Pylon-Token is based on Ethereum.
The team behind Pylon Network has
pre-mined 3,750,000 Pylon-Tokens, from
which 3,250,000 will be offered at the
token sale. The remaining 500,000 will be
used to fund all operations of the project
development by the team and partners.
Investors participating in the initial
sale of tokens will receive a share of the
pre-mined Pylon-Tokens. For the Pylon
Network purposes, Pylon-Coin is used,
based – this time – on the core algorithm
of FairCoin a cryptocurrency developed
by FairCoop.
The project is focused on the Spanish
market but plans to expand to other
countries, particularly the UK and
Germany. There are around 20 renewable
energy co-ops operating in Spain. GoiENER
is a qualified and certified player in
the wholesale Spanish energy market
and is supporting the project by being
the first adaptors during the pilot
demonstration stage through the
development of the project.
Mr Bel thinks Blockchain has a strong
appeal to renewable energy co-ops
because it allows greater transparency
and more security due its decentralisation.
USA
US agri co-ops
expand soy crushing
capacity to meet rising
global demand
Agri co-ops in the USA are building
soybean crushing plants at the fastest rate
in 20 years as demand soars for the crop to
make livestock feed.
The new plants will have the capacity
to process at least 120 million bushels of
the crop in 2019, an increase of 5% and the
highest since 1997-8.
Reuters has reported that farmers in
the US, the world’s top soy producer, are
planning to sow another record area.
The rise of a new global middle class
with money to spend on meat increased
the demand for animal feed, with industry
experts predicting production of soy will
have to rise 20% over the next decade.
This increased demand has increased
margins at crushing plants to more than a
$1 per bushel, the strongest for 18 months,
according to financial exchange company
CME Group.
“Margins on soybean processing were
very good, some of the best we’ve had in
many years. And when the industry has
good margins, you expand production,”
Mark Sandeen, vice president of product
marketing at farmer co-op Ag Processing
Inc (AGP) told Reuters.
AGP, the largest farmer-owned soybean
processor in the world, has already started
work a new soy plant in Aberdeen, South
Dakota, that will have an annual capacity
to process 40 million bushels.
It is owned by local and regional co-ops
representing over 250,000 farmers from
16 states throughout the US. and Canada,
and already operates nine soybean
processing plants.
Another of the new plants is being built
by North Dakota Soybean Processors
(NDSP), which is working on a similarsized
facility on an 80-acre site near the
town of Spiritwood.
NDSP says the plant will offer an
integrated soybean crush facility and
refinery to produce soybean meal, refined,
bleached and deodorised oil and biodiesel.
It has completed a feasibility study and
a preliminary front-end engineering
and design study for the estimated $287
million project.
The new plants are expected to increase
demand for local soybeans, which could
be pushing up prices that farmers nearby
will receive for their crops, and reducing
transport costs.
18 | JANUARY 2018