Two years ago, we started Daylight to promote distributed energy growth and reduce strain on power grids. Inspired by successful market-based solutions like renewable energy credits and emissions trading, we envision a global, community-owned, onchain economy that funds and coordinates distributed energy—without relying on government mandates.

Today, we're thrilled to announce two major milestones:

1. The launch of our Daylight Protocol testnet: Starting now, anyone can connect their distributed energy devices to the Daylight mobile app and start earning rewards.

2. A successful $9 million funding round, led by a16z Crypto, with participation from Framework Ventures and our existing investors Lerer Hippeau, Lattice, and Escape Velocity. 

We’re excited to match our team’s decades of power trading and energy management experience with the brightest minds in crypto.

Our energy system is undergoing a fundamental shift

We believe the electron is the most important commodity of the 21st century. However, as electricity demand surges from AI and electrification, electricity supply is becoming more erratic due to growth in intermittent renewable energy. The result is a fragile, unreliable grid and an unclear path to meeting future energy demand.

The traditional electricity model—constructing massive power plants, transmitting energy through extensive transmission and distribution networks, and delivering it to end-users– worked for the 20th century. But today, permitting times for new energy generation takes years, and new transmission is almost impossible to build due to bureaucracy and red tape. We need a new approach to meet the boom in demand while ensuring reliability.

From centralized to decentralized

Decentralizing our grid can be the key to solving these issues. Distributed energy resources push energy generation and management to the edges, freeing up critical energy capacity without trillions of dollars of new infrastructure. These devices can even be networked together to mimic larger power plants to improve grid reliability.

Despite the benefits, there is a classic coordination problem - distributed energy resources only create significant network value collectively, yet the decision to upgrade to these technologies is an individual one. This misalignment results in higher prices with lower returns on investment, hampering the growth of distributed energy.

Market-based solutions have been integral to modifying outcomes in the energy sector for decades. For example, tradable credit systems such as renewable energy credits (RECs) and energy efficiency credits have encouraged significant investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. However, these solutions are typically top-down, relying on governments for implementation. What if we could create new market solutions from the bottom up, merging economics with startup intensity to drive societal outcomes?

Blockchains give us tools to build new economies. Unified asset ledgers, global liquidity, and peer-to-peer transactions are powerful primitives that now allow startups to compete with governments in the implementation of economic systems. At Daylight, we’re building the onchain economic system that incentivizes and rewards the growth of distributed energy and electrification.

Introducing the Daylight Ecosystem

The Daylight ecosystem is comprised of three core components:

1. The Daylight Protocol: an onchain platform for distributed energy capacity and energy data, coordinated with the world’s first energy-backed rewards;

2. The Daylight Marketplace: a marketplace that simplifies and standardizes distributed energy upgrades for homeowners and small business; and

3. The Daylight App: the central hub for connecting energy devices and a digital wallet for managing rewards.

Just like renewable energy credits or energy efficiency credits, the Daylight Protocol will incentivize users for providing energy capacity to its open-source network. The protocol will build an economy around its energy capacity and data, allowing energy companies and developers to interact with the infrastructure. 

The Daylight Marketplace is the first application on the Daylight Protocol. Our platform designs, engineers, and procures the full suite of energy upgrades: solar, batteries, EV chargers, heat pumps, insulation, and hot water heaters. Our marketplace of vetted local contractors complete the installation. We’re currently active in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, with Texas and California opening soon.

Through the Daylight App, users earn rewards for connecting energy devices like thermostats, batteries, electric vehicles, and solar inverters, and engaging with the app. Users also connect custom energy meters to collect real-time, standardized energy data. 

How to get involved

You can get involved today by downloading the Daylight App and connecting energy devices. You can also interact with the Daylight Marketplace to explore distributed energy upgrades that make sense for your home or building. 

Get started by downloading the Daylight App here.