Glossary

24/7 Clean Energy

An initiative for purchasing clean, carbon-free energy every hour on a regional grid where consumption occurs. An entity's clean energy demands are correlated with its energy generation on an hourly basis.

Aggregator

A new role in energy service provision that groups local participants in a power system (energy consumers, energy producers, energy prosumers) to determine and moderate how much energy they will need to consume from the grid, and, in some cases help them sell their excess electricity from distributed energy resources (DERs) back to the regional or wholesale electricity market.

The aggregator is an intermediary between prosumers, Transmission System Operators (TSOs), and Distribution System Operators (DSOs) that want to serve this group or use their DER services on the grid.

Application Registries

Application registries are the logic to manage permissions, enrollments, and relationships between market participants in an automated way.

Charge Point Operator (CPO)

The Charge Point Operator (CPO) is responsible for technical operation and maintenance of (public and semi-public) charging stations. Its revenue comes mainly from providing electrical energy to EVs.

Crypto Climate Accord (CCA)

The Crypto Climate Accord (CCA) is a global private sector-led initiative co-launched by Energy Web to build, test, and implement digital solutions that will decarbonize the crypto and blockchain industry by 2040. Learn more here.

dApp

A decentralized application (dApp) is an application built on a decentralized network that combines a smart contract and a frontend user interface.

Decentralized Identifier (DID)

DIDs **** are persistent identifiers that identify DID subjects such as assets, customers, organizations, and other market participants. DIDs allow the controller of a DID to prove control over it without requiring permission from any other party. DIDs associate a DID subject with a DID document to allow trustable interactions with that subject.

Decentralized Service Bus (DSB)

The DSB is the messaging service of the Energy Web Decentralized Operating System’s (EW-DOS) utility layer. Unlike any other centralised and managed pub/sub messaging systems, EW-DSB is designed and implemented to be fully decentralised and scalable. Messages shared on EW-DSB can be traced back to its original sender using cryptographic signatures; it adds extra security to data exchanges. One of the key benefits of the EW-DSB is to be schema agnostic, meaning any type of schema can be shared as a message between users/systems.

Distributed Energy Resources (DER)

Physical and virtual assets that are deployed across the distribution grid can be used individually or in aggregate to provide value to the grid, individual customers, or both.

DERs can for example include solar, batteries, flexible loads and are also often referred to as “devices” or “assets”.

Distribution System Operator (DSO)

The operating managers (and sometimes owners) of energy distribution networks that operate at a regional or local level. DSOs manage high-voltage incoming electricity from larger transmission grids (via TSOs), convert it to a lower voltage, and distribute it throughout the local network. They are, in essence, the middle-man between the raw, high-voltage electricity from transmission grids and the local consumers of electricity.

E-Mobility Service Provider (eSMP)

The eMobility Service Provider (eMSP) provides e-mobility services such as access to charging services, payment and more to EV drivers. It requires certain data exchange for those services, e.g. charging locations for routing.

Electric Power Distribution

The movement of high-voltage electricity from sub-stations to customers through distribution lines.

Electric Power Transmission

The movement of high-voltage electricity from initial generation sites to substations.

Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs)

Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs) describe global instruments which certify that a specific unit (historically 1 MWh, but sometimes 1 KWh) of electricity was produced from a renewable source.

Globally there are various EAC systems to claim the use of renewable or low-carbon energy. Some well-known standards include Guarantees of Origin (EU), I-RECs (global), and RECs (US/Canada).

• Redeemed EAC = an EAC that has been bought by someone can't be resold to anyone else

• Claimed or Cancelled EAC = other ways of calling Redeemed EACs

• Bundled Certificates = contracts that sell consumable energy + EACs together

• Unbundled Certificates = contracts that sell EACs separately from the energy that produced them

Energy Web Chain (EWC)

The EWC is a public, enterprise-grade blockchain platform designed for the energy sector’s regulatory, operational, and market needs. Launched in mid-2019, it serves as a foundational digital infrastructure on which companies can build and run blockchain-based decentralized applications (dApps). Learn more here.

Energy Web Decentralized Operating System (EW-DOS)

EW-DOS is the acronym for Energy Web Decentralized Operating System. EW-DOS is an open-source stack of decentralized software and standards. **** Learn more here.

Energy Web Token (EWT)

The EWT is the Energy Web Chain native first-layer utility token.

Grid Flexibility

The ability of the grid to balance how much power it generates with how much demand there is for it. Flexibility services include any service that meets a requirement to provide more or less demand on the system. ****

At a basic level, Transmission System Officers (TSOs) and Distribution Service Operators (DSOs) procure flexibility services. Aggregators and prosumers offer flexibility services using distributed energy resources.

Message Broker

A distributed messaging node which can send OCPI messages between OCN Parties.

Open Charging Network (OCN)

A decentralized network for enabling use-cases in the EV charging domain. Consists of many OCN Nodes and a single OCN Registry. Can also be considered as an implementation of the OCPI 2.2 Hub concept.

Open Charge Network (OCN) Identity

A self-sovereign identity of a party on the Open Charging Network based on an Energy Web Chain public/private key-pair.

Open Charge Network (OCN) Node

**Open Charge Network (**OCN )Node

A single node of the Open Charging Network which forwards OCPI/OCN messages between parties based on a routing system. Consists of a message broker, a connection to an Energy Web Chain Node, a blockchain wallet and more. A network of nodes constructs the Open Charging Network.

Open Charge Point Interface (OCPI)

A protocol that allows for a scalable, automated roaming setup between Charge Point Operators and eMobility Service Providers. See OCPI documentation here.

Open Charge Network (OCN) Registry

Smart contracts on the Energy Web Chain that contain important information about registered OCN Nodes, OCN Parties and OCN Services. These contracts act as the addressing, identity, and permissions system of the OCN. A command line interface and libraries are provided for interaction.

Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)

A company that manufactures and sells products or parts of a product that their buyer, another company, sells to its own customers while putting the products under its own branding.

Prosumer

Anyone who both consumes and produces energy. Prosumers produce energy through Distributed Energy Resources (DER), such as rooftop solar panels.

Self Sovereign Identity (SSI)

SSI is a digital paradigm that promotes an individual’s control over their identity and their data. This is in contrast to the current paradigm where most of our official identifiers (driver’s license, birth certificate, usernames, etc.) are given to us and maintained by a central authority, and where our data can be shared without our knowledge or consent.

DIDs and VCs are the two most critical components of SSI. Together they allow users to have control over both their identity and any data associated with them.

Software Development Toolkit (SDK)

An SDK is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications. In the context of Energy Web, they are open-source “blueprints” for building apps on EW-DOS.

Staking

Energy Web launched staking on the Volta Test Network in August 2021. This is a first step towards a Decentralized Software as a Service (dSaaS) infrastructure, allowing for decentralized, community-driven service provision for Energy Web utility services and applications.

The Energy Web staking model extends blockchain tokens staking to SaaS provisioning. Ultimately, anyone will be able to stake tokens with service providers of their choosing, and both parties will be rewarded for providing fast, stable and secure services based on EW's decentralized, open-source software. Staking in the way Energy Web is implementing it, applies the benefits of decentralization and network resiliency of blockchain technology to software and IT services more broadly.

Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA)

Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) is a system of software and hardware elements that allows industrial organizations to i) control industrial processes locally or at remote locations; ii) monitor, gather, and process real-time data; iii) directly interact with devices such as sensors, valves, pumps, motors, and more through human-machine interface (HMI) software; and iv) record events into a log file.

Switchboard

Switchboard is an identity and access management dApp (decentralized app). Switchboard allows for the definition of organization and application structures to be used for role-based permissioning within applications that relate to decarbonization.

It enables a user-centric, decentralized approach where users are in control of their identity (identifier, keys, credentials). Switchboard enables the digitization of assets by giving them unique identities and allowing them to interact with the decentralized operating system and decarbonization use cases.

Transmission System Operator (TSO)

Responsible for transmitting electrical power from power generation plants to distribution local or regional operators (Distribution Service Operators) via the electrical grid. This involves determining how much electricity needs to be on the grid at any given time, and managing reserve capacity and ancillary energy providers to keep the grid balanced.

Utility Layer (UL)

The UL is composed of decentralized cloud services like messaging, key manager, and storage that form the “middle” layer of the EW-DOS tech stack.

Validators

"Validators" refer to both a node and an organization; the companies operating the EWC. Validators on the Energy Web Chain have three main responsibilities: i) Create Blocks, ii) Provide Network Security, and iii) Participate in the EWC Governance.

Verifiable Credentials (VC)

VCs are a set of statements made about a subject (such as a DID) by an authority. They can be used to convince others (who trust the authority) of the truth of the statements and can be linked from a DID document.

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