DexGrid FAQ
Common questions about DexGrid | Preguntas frecuentes sobre DexGrid
Last updated
Common questions about DexGrid | Preguntas frecuentes sobre DexGrid
Last updated
1) General questions
We are a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company headquartered in Puerto Rico. We offer our software applications toolkit to community microgrids and utilities.
With a background in engineering, software and finance, we've spent a considerable amount of time working with local energy professionals and the regulator putting together a viable energy alternative for the communities of Puerto Rico.
Our is the software connection between the energy suppliers of the microgrids and their consumers, the neighbors. This connection includes
Setting financial expectations for anchors modeling their projects
Onboarding local consumers
Aligning consumption behaviors with the energy generation capacity
Scaling the microgrid range
A microgrid is a localized power grid, with its own source of energy supply, serving a relatively small network of electricity users, as small as a single entity.
A community microgrid is a microgrid that serves a larger network of electricity users locally, with the microgrid anchors selling and distributing electricity generated and stored on-site to consumers of their community, most often their neighbors.
Both types of microgrids can be either connected to the utility grid or operating independently.
An anchor is a business, a manufacturer, a municipality or an association that makes the economic and social decision to sell its electricity to its neighbors.
These anchors might already be running their own microgrid. In this case, they can use their excess electricity and expand their generation capacity to sell it to their neighbors.
These anchors might be considering or developing a microgrid project. In this case, they can upscale their project by including the sale of electricity to their neighbors in their revenue projections.
Most often, they are local leaders generating a reasonable profit while supporting their communities with reliable and resilient electricity. A win-win for everybody!
Typically, a neighbor of these microgrid anchors. For instance, a household, or a business or a public building, in fact any individual, family, business or institution, in the neighborhood of these anchors, looking for reliable electricity and a better experience at affordable rates.
It's simple.
The onboarding combines user outreach and incentives to sign up via the GridUser app.
On-site, neighbors scan the QR code on the flyer provided by their project anchor.
Coming up soon, prosumers in the location of a community microgrid will be able to sell their excess electricity to the microgrid as well and earn real money as opposed to utility credits.
A prosumer is a consumer of electricity that has its own energy generation and/or storage on-site. A typical prosumer is a household with solar panels and/or batteries providing them with their electricity needs, sometimes connected to the grid via net metering. By connecting to their microgrid through their DexGrid app, these prosumers will be able to sell their excess of electricity to their neighbors for real money.
Reliability of electricity operations has been designed at the core of our applications toolkit.
At DexGrid, we will always promote renewables. Having said that, we also understand the reality of running microgrid operations. It means that, in general, some form of engine-type energy generation is used so that the electricity generation continues even under stress conditions.
However, in Puerto Rico for instance, there are laws that require a certain amount of renewables to be integrated in the energy generation capacity of the microgrid. Our GridLauncher app guides anchors towards the most appropriate source of energy by previewing operations using various types of energy generation systems.
Currently at home, in Puerto Rico. There's a flagrant need for an energy alternative and we want to set this alternative as the framework for other regions in the world. That alternative is local, reliable and affordable.
Soon after, we'll expand our offers to other regions in the world.
The retail rate is priced in USD per kWh consumed. This rate includes the following charges.
The energy generation rate:
This wholesale rate is both competitive and regulated, protecting the interest of all the community members. This rate is supervised by the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau and is also publicly verifiable. As any competitive market, this rate may vary but cannot be higher than the level approved by the regulator, protecting the consumers.
The microgrid services rate:
This rate includes the cost of the grid to distribute the electricity to the consumers and the cost of running the software and users operations.
The savings and rewards:
The Community Microgrids program includes savings and rewards offered to users. We estimate that users can save an average of 20 to 30% per year by switching from LUMA to their community microgrid.
EARN rewards users on their Energy Credits. The Super Savings plan offers the most electricity savings for their money.
WeAlign rewards users on their consumption behavior. DexGrid's software continuously monitors the microgrid operations. In certain situations, incentives are offered to consumers to adjust their consumption down to support the operations of the microgrid. Consumers are guided through their app interface into how they can help reduce the stress while at the same time, getting rewarded to do so.
Your GridLauncher is free for the first month. Project anchors set early expectations for their projects while modeling and coordinating competitive quotes from energy professionals to develop and launch their microgrid. We make it easy, in a few steps, intuitively assembled to maximize chances of success.
An energy supplier is the project anchor. Once microgrids have launched, prosumers can also sell their electricity.
Anchors are the owners of the microgrid projects.
Anchors might already have their own existing microgrid and are interested to sell their electricity to their neighbors or
Anchors might not have any existing microgrid but look to start their microgrid with the objective to sell their electricity to their neighbors
Anchors are businesses, manufacturers, municipalities or associations that make the economic and social decision to sell their electricity to their neighbors and communities. Most often, they are local leaders generating a reasonable profit while supporting their communities with reliable and resilient electricity. A win-win for everybody!
Prosumers are consumers of electricity and have their own energy generation and/or storage on-site. A typical prosumer is a household with solar panels and/or batteries providing them with their electricity needs, sometimes connected to the grid via net metering.
Becoming an anchor for a community microgrid has several advantages.
First, it's a utility cost hedge considering how the cost of retail electricity in Puerto Rico and the United States has been trending higher. It's also an offset to the cost of becoming sustainable as any excess electricity is sold to the neighbors.
"The economist José Alameda argued that the increase in electricity "affects everything." He said that "it has an effect on residents, businesses, industry, manufacturing. It is an increase at a time when the economy has been severely disrupted by the pandemic crisis, so nothing good can be expected from this."
"Source: Statista "Average retail electricity price in the United States"
Secondly, it's a reliability hedge against the increasing trend of service interruptions as a result of utility grids failures in Puerto Rico and the United States.
Third, anchors will benefit from supporting the economic and social stability of their community in the mid to long term. Electricity is a fundamental need and electrified communities have provably been stronger.
Lastly, Puerto Rico is ideally positioned to set the energy framework for reliable and resilient electricity at affordable rates. Local businesses, manufacturers, municipalities and associations leading the way will certainly benefit from the first mover advantage.
The growth of the clean energy generation market has been at the center of the recent law Act 17-2019.
In collaboration with the local regulator, we'll be providing the tools ensuring transparency, supervision and certification of the Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) market.
Not long after our Community Microgrids program, we'll release our RECs market functionality as we expect it to streamline the issuance, certification, exchange and accounting process of this market.
Energy suppliers of renewables will be able to self-custody their RECs and monetize their holdings as they see fit.
If you are a prosumer and want to sell your excess electricity for real money, you'll soon be able to do so through our GridUser app once our Prosumer feature has been enabled.
Congratulations, this makes you a prosumer. New opportunities are now available.
In general, having your own system means either paying it upfront or leasing it from an energy company. While system owners benefit from resilient electricity, they usually don't capture the full economic value of their system.
For instance, when available, net metering offers utility credits, which can only be offset by consuming electricity from the grid. And these credits expire in time. Moreover, generation systems are usually not perfectly aligned with the owner’s actual consumption, making the metering credit almost impossible to maximize.
Via the GridUser app, prosumers get paid instantly real money for whatever amount of excess electricity they sell. No more utility credits, no more uncertainties.
Regarding energy systems, our API gateway can integrate most energy generation and battery storage systems. Anchors are able to review their systems within the GridLauncher app. Prosumers will be able to enter their system specifications once the Prosumers feature has been enabled in the GridUser app.
Microgrids combine local generation and distribution of energy. Microgrids empowered by DexGrid can sell their electricity to their neighbors, upgrading them to the community microgrids status.
Local generation and distribution of energy means that there's no more need for transmission lines which are inefficient, expensive to maintain and exposed to natural disasters.
Local distribution grid means that if a portion of that grid goes down, it won't affect the rest of the population, covered by their own community microgrids. Having local grid damages handled by the local contractor should realistically reduce the time necessary to repair it to less than a few days.
Having local energy generation at the commercial level, competing with local prosumers generation, maximizes the economy of scale (the larger the size, the cheaper relatively) and the competitive nature of the wholesale marketplace.
This is the best path in providing consumers of these community microgrids with a competitive rate. Under the supervision of the local regulator, consumers are protected on this rate.
DexGrid also provides its users with continuous savings and rewards in addition to a range of untapped opportunities.
The EARN module means for a user to simply hold their funds in their app wallet and get rewarded for it with additional ECs earned. The Super Savings plan offers the most savings to users.
In addition, the WeAlign module offers users a chance to maximize their savings by adjusting their consumption in times of need.
We are ready for whatever comes our way, hurricanes included!
The retail rate is priced in USD per kWh consumed. This rate includes the following charges.
The energy generation rate:
This wholesale rate is both competitive and regulated, protecting the interest of all the community members. This rate is supervised by the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau and is also publicly verifiable. As any competitive market, this rate may vary but cannot be higher than the level approved by the regulator, protecting the consumers.
The microgrid services rate:
This rate includes the cost of the grid to distribute the electricity to the consumers and the cost of running the software and users operations.
The savings and rewards:
The Community Microgrids program includes savings and rewards offered to users. We estimate that users can save an average of 20 to 30% per year by switching from LUMA to their community microgrid.
EARN rewards users on their Energy Credits. The Super Savings plan offers the most electricity savings for their money.
WeAlign rewards users on their consumption behavior. DexGrid's software continuously monitors the microgrid operations. In certain situations, incentives are offered to consumers to adjust their consumption down to support the operations of the microgrid. Consumers are guided through their app interface into how they can help reduce the stress while at the same time, getting rewarded to do so.
By onboarding their local microgrids through DexGrid and switching from the grid, we estimate that consumers can save up to 30% on their bills. For instance, in Puerto Rico, that's hundreds of dollars of savings annually for median size households and thousands to hundreds of thousands for commercials, manufacturers and industrials, depending upon their size.
And these savings are not even taking into account how much money a household or a business saves by having electricity continuously on.
All payments and rewards within the DexGrid app are processed in Energy Credits (ECs) to the user’s app wallet.
An Energy Credit is the digital version of the local currency that is used by the community microgrids.
Electricity consumers use ECs to pay for their electricity needs. Anchors and prosumers get paid in ECs when selling their electricity.
For instance, in Puerto Rico, a user can convert USD into ECs, and vice versa, directly between their bank account and their app wallet. A user in PR with 100 ECs in their app wallet has the equivalent of $100.
Through their GridUser wallet, users can:
EARN additional money by simply holding onto their ECs in their app wallet
Use their ECs to pay for their electricity needs once the microgrid operations have launched
DexGrid team is working hard on expanding its service offerings to its users, allowing them to do even more with their energy money.
Stay tune for our next release!
By responding to the notifications received on your app.
Regular notifications providing incentives to temporarily align the consumption behavior to a more appropriate time of the day or night. From time to time, the software may recommend to consume more/less electricity at a certain time of the day or night. Consumers that follow these guidelines can save ECs on their electricity usage and even get rewarded, depending upon the situation. In brief, the more a consumer follows the guidelines provided by the software, the more the savings and rewards.
Alerts may be received on the app as well in times of stress within the microgrid operations. This situation usually triggers the reliability safeguards which may temporarily increase the cost of electricity. Such situation may happen when there are unusual peaks of consumption sometimes combined with a bad weather. Once again, consumers responding to these alerts will get rewarded accordingly.
If a consumer doesn't have any Energy Credits balance, they won't be able to pay for the electricity they consume.
Our software ensures that consumers are notified in advance when their Energy Credits balance is low so that they can quickly refill it. Their app wallet being directly connected to their bank account should simplify this process.
For any question, we encourage users to look for the answer in the Help section of the app.
All questions not related to the application itself will be redirected to the local anchor in charge of all electricity related matters.
Prepayment eliminates credit profiling for users, making access to electricity much easier and faster. Users can onboard to get their secured electricity with as little as their monthly consumption amount.
With automatic refills, users only need to make sure to have enough funds available in their bank account so that they don't lose access to their electricity.
The process is simple. At onboarding, users upload pictures of their three most recent LUMA bills and enter the number of kWh for each of these three bills.
Rebates are offered upon selection of the Savings Plan or the Super Savings Plan. The Basic Plan does not offer any rebate.
To complete the process, users safely store their preferred method of payment which will be used to refill their Energy Credits balance in the future. Once the payment has been received, users receive their Energy Credits equivalent to the Plan selection, including rebates available. From there, users can start consuming electricity.
As a newly onboarding consumer, see below how to proceed:
Within the app, in Account setup, click "Connect to My Grid"
Click "Use my current location" or fill in the fields
The app indicates if a local microgrid is already operational
If a local microgrid is operational
In the app, Schedule connection with a qualified electrician through the app
Complete the onboarding steps "Secure wallet", "Upload electricity bills" and select "Energy Credit plan"
Possible to start with 2. and go back to 1.
Your new electricity experience starts once the electrician has connected you to your grid
If no local microgrid is operational yet
In the app, click "See what's next" or "Skip and finish later"
Select preferred option
A local microgrid is certainly under development and DexGrid will make sure to keep you posted on its progress.
In the meantime, select "Earn interest on my EC" to earn additional Energy Credits on your money
For more information, check our FAQ
Scanning the QR code on the flyer provided by your local microgrid anchor
Complete the onboarding steps "Secure wallet", "Upload electricity bills" and select "Energy Credit plan"
Schedule connection with a qualified electrician through the app
Start using your new electricity experience once the electrician has connected you to your grid
Microgrid project anchors signup up through the .
While project anchors have started modeling their project, their begins, at which point neighbors are onboarded.
Or these neighbors can so that we can contact their local microgrid anchor.
Our offers incentives to consumers to use electricity at the most advantageous times to support reliable electricity service. This program proactively monitors operations and aims to prevent potential stress conditions such as prolonged bad weather or peak in consumption.
Go to or our to sign up. For an improved experience, we don't use passwords. An email is sent for verification.
For interested consumers, please use this and tell us where you live so that we can contact your local microgrid anchor.
Source: The Weekly Journal ""
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Source: NREL ""
If you run a microgrid and want to sell your electricity to your neighbors or if you want to model your brand new microgrid project, check out our for more details. From there, you'll be able to model how to anchor a microgrid and sell your electricity to your community.
Contact us for more details.
More questions? .
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to receive your secured link to download the GridUser app
Nuestro es la conexión de software entre los proveedores de energía de las microrredes y sus consumidores, los vecinos. Esta conexión incluye
El proyecto Microgrid ancla el registro a través del .
Si bien la ancla del proyecto han comenzado a modelar su proyecto, comienza su , momento en el que los vecinos se incorporan.
O estos vecinos que podamos contactar a su ancla local de microrred.
Nuestro programa ofrece incentivos a los consumidores para que usen electricidad en los momentos más ventajosos para respaldar un servicio de electricidad confiable. Este programa monitorea proactivamente las operaciones y tiene como objetivo prevenir posibles condiciones de estrés, como el mal tiempo prolongado o el pico de consumo.
Vaya a o a nuestro para registrarse. Para una experiencia mejorada, no usamos contraseñas. Se envía un correo electrónico para su verificación.
Para los consumidores interesados, utilice este y díganos dónde vive para que podamos ponernos en contacto con su ancla de microrred local.
Fuente: The Weekly Journal ""
,
Fuente: NREL ""
Si ejecuta una microrred y desea vender su electricidad a sus vecinos o si desea modelar su nuevo proyecto de microrred, consulte nuestra para obtener más detalles.
Contáctenos para más detalles.
¿Más preguntas?
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para descargar la aplicación GridUser
