Energy Web: A Review of 2022 and Outlook for 2023

Author: Energy Web

Compiled by: ChainCatcher

At this time of year, reflecting on the past 12 months and how eventful it has been is almost a cliché. But within the orbit of Energy Web—at the intersection of global energy transition and Web3 technology—even exaggeration seems insufficient to describe everything we witnessed in 2022.

From the perspective of energy and climate, this year has set records in shocking and inspiring ways. While the energy transition is more urgent than ever, there are encouraging signs that 2022 is likely to be a pivotal turning point for achieving net-zero emissions.

Meanwhile, in the Web3 and crypto world, well… you already know how exhausting this year has been, with headlines ranging from merely disappointing to outright enraging.

So how did Energy Web navigate such a tumultuous time?

Anyone who has weathered a storm knows that the outcome largely depends on preparation and wise decisions made when the going gets tough. No one could have predicted that 2022 would turn into a mess, but in hindsight, Energy Web benefited from both strategies.

In terms of laying a solid foundation, our focus on building solutions for specific industries has put us in an unusually advantageous position within the Web3 space to withstand the current moment. Over the past six years, we have collectively invested tens of thousands of hours with our members to design, deploy, and refine solutions, and we are very clear about the real-world problems we can solve and the value we can (and cannot) create in the energy transition. Therefore, we are not relying on speculative crypto nonsense to drive our growth, but rather generating stable revenue by providing tangible business advantages to our partners here and now.

Speaking of immediate action, this year we made a subtle yet important strategic shift that will help us ride the tailwinds of accelerated clean energy investment while avoiding the headwinds facing the tech/crypto industry. In short, we transitioned from offering the Energy Web Decentralized Operating System (EW-DOS) as independent component stacks to bundling these components into three integrated solutions: Green Proofs, Data Exchange, and Asset Management. Through this shift, we not only discovered a strong product-market fit but also achieved a more flexible and scalable business model that shares elements with other popular open-source projects.

As we reflect on the past year and look ahead to 2023, even as the world around us remains chaotic, we are still in a very favorable position to achieve our mission. We will not change course or wait for conditions to improve. Instead, we will continue our journey guided by three themes:

Theme 1: Solve Real Problems

In the Web3 world, there has historically been a tendency to focus on the attributes of technology rather than their actual impact. This has always been a questionable practice, but with the recent collapse of the crypto industry, it is now completely untenable. Promoting solutions as "decentralized" or "autonomous" is meaningless unless you can articulate the purpose that justifies these means.

This year we kept this lesson in mind. Recognizing the capabilities and limitations of EW-DOS, we focused on a few narrow use cases where our technology offers substantial business benefits relative to alternative solutions. Our commitment to problem-solving is reflected in our communications and business strategy. Highlights from 2022 include:

Theme 2: Productized Solutions

As early as 2019, we envisioned EW-DOS as a box of Lego bricks: companies could mix and match interoperable building blocks to create custom works. This approach has proven quite successful in developing minimum viable products, but it is not scalable in production. To maximize our impact, we need to adopt transactional and repeatable electronic warfare solutions as much as possible while minimizing the need for our organization to assist in customization and implementation. In short, we need to get closer to offering curated (or even pre-assembled) Lego sets. For Energy Web, this means ultimately providing solutions across multiple business models and offering fully self-hosted and hosted service options. This year, we took a small step in this direction by launching the Energy Web RPC node in the AWS Marketplace, and next year we will release more in this area.

Theme 3: Emphasize Execution, Not Just Innovation

Innovation is, and will always be, a core part of our organizational DNA. But 2022 was the first year-end cycle where our focus was not primarily on what prototypes we would deliver or what technologies we wanted to experiment with in the new year, but on executing our roadmap to deliver three core solutions in production at scale. In the past, we measured success through engineering output or partnerships, but as we mature as an organization and enter a new phase of our lifecycle, we will prioritize impact and adoption. Looking ahead to the 2023 year-end report, we hope the headlines focus not just on the launch of green EV charging solutions but on how many drivers are using them; not just on partners experimenting with our technology but on how many are leveraging it to operate markets; not just on plans to decarbonize crypto mining but on how many miners have been certified.

In summary, we are excited about the future and can’t wait to continue our mission in the coming year!

About Energy Web
Energy Web is a global nonprofit organization that accelerates the clean energy transition by developing open-source technology solutions for energy systems. Our enterprise-grade solutions improve coordination across complex energy markets, unlocking the full potential of clean distributed energy for businesses, grid operators, and customers. Our enterprise asset management, data exchange, and Green Proofs solutions (the tools we use to register and track low-carbon products) are built on Energy Web Chain, the world’s first public blockchain tailored for the energy sector. The Energy Web ecosystem includes leading utility companies, renewable energy developers, grid operators, corporate energy buyers, automotive, IoT, telecom leaders, and more.