Energy Web eyes up to 1.2 billion users by 2030

Between 200 million and 1.2 billion individuals and devices with decentralised identifiers (DIDs) could be using the Energy Web stack by 2030.

Such DIDs or digital identities, which are user generated, are an important component of decentralised applications such as blockchain and can be used to identify any ‘thing’ from an individual to an organisation or assets such as a device, a model or contract.

In a new posting, Michal Bacia, Token Economist with Energy Web, considers three scenarios for the upcoming adoption of the EW blockchain tech stack, from a ‘conservative’ 6% monthly usage increase to an ‘optimistic’ 8% increase with an ‘in the middle’ 7% increase.

Based on these, around 728,000 DIDs are expected to be issued for devices and people in 2022, with Bacia indicating that reaching close to 1 million DIDs in the next year is “feasible” based on the current pipeline and the recently completed Flex Alert project for the California ISO.

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“For example, the CAISO Flex Alert can reach all California residents, close to 40 million people,” he writes.

Extrapolating the figures to 2030, 201 million DIDs are calculated for the conservative scenario, almost 500 million for ‘in the middle’ and 1.2 billion for the ‘optimistic’.

These correspond to 2030 market shares of 4%, 10% and 25% respectively, based on projected growth in the number of connected energy-related devices from 2.2 billion in 2022 to 3.8 billion in 2030.

Further, approximately 83% of the DIDs are expected to belong to assets, primarily electric vehicles and smart meters along with solar PV, storage and HVAC among others, with the 17% balance belonging to people interacting with these assets.

“The goal of issuing 200 million and more DIDs is very ambitious but doable by 2030,” says Bacia.

He adds that the middle adoption scenario assumes issuing almost 83 million DIDs to individuals by 2030. For context, this means onboarding around 16% of the existing customers of energy companies that are the current members of Energy Web.

Bacia also notes that Energy Web is developing the Decentralized Service Level Assurance (DLSA) solution to promote wider use of its DID-based tech stack.