Company Structure

Since its beginning as an open-source project for building an Ethereum based Blockchain for energy market transactions back in 2015 it has been the mission of STROMDAO to enable people to actively shape the future of renewable energies in Germany. As every success story starts with the team building it our core team will be introduced in this chapter.

“If everyone is moving forward, then success takes care of itself” (Henry Ford)

History

In 2015 the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy was in search for a new energy market design. As decentralization of energy production and digitization of communication between energy market actors became widespread new concepts were demanded. . The aim of the legislative process was to develop an electricity market design for the energy transition, as the existing model became inefficient as the share of electricity generated from renewable sources increased.

Thorsten Zoerner (founder and creator of STROMDAO) developed the model of the hybrid electricity market and submitted it to the Ministry. At the same time, a white paper was published and made known to the industry.

The 2015 amendment partially complied with the proposed market model and its rules, paving the way for the commercial implementation of the mechanisms described.

It quickly became apparent that the processes for billing and business processing established in the energy industry were standardized, but were not able to ensure a small-scale implementation. What was needed was a technology that made it possible to express ownership of small shares and to document the transfer without gaps.

In 2016, Stefan Thon and Thorsten Zoerner met in a project to develop a standard for the settlement of so-called "residential electricity". It turned out that the task contained the same problems that were solved with the hybrid power market model. An additional difficulty, however, was that a solution was sought that was able to represent the market rules automatically on a decentralized basis (in the object). The blockchain technology was used, which solved the problem of consensus building of all parties (=tenant, plant operator, owner) also in the absence of a central control.

Energy economist Manuel Utz joined the team in spring 2017. The first electricity customers were supplied with it and the first prototype of a hybrid electricity tariff was developed.

Corrently is the logical and consistent further development of the first hybrid electricity tariff developed back in 2017.

Team

The founding team of STROMDAO consists of Thorsten, Stefan and Manuel. Due to family reasons Stefan decided to leave STROMDAO by the middle of 2018.

Thorsten Zoerner (Managing director)

Since 2007 I have been working on the electricity grid and the electricity market. At the same time, a blog was created to provide information on the respective topics. It can be found at blog.stromhaltig.de.

So far I have published three books on the energy industry. In my book on the hybrid electricity market, published in 2014, I describe a market design that was included in the Electricity Market 2.0 legislative package in Germany. This combines two technologies of electricity procurement: the house connection with purchase from a classic electricity supplier and an alternative purchase of renewable energies. The economic advantages of such a market design have been proven.

Digitalization will also influence tomorrow's energy industry. Therefore I have intensively dealt with the topic of blockchain technology. Blockchain is a technology that can simplify the exchange and documentation of data. Therefore, this technology can revolutionize today's energy system with the help of digital possibilities. This enables automatic balancing of energy generation and energy consumption.

Professional stations

HP - Technical Presales
IBM - Product Marketing / Solution Architect
Dassault Systems - Senior Technical Presales

Manuel Utz (Partner)

The topic of industrial energy management has been my hobbyhorse since I studied industrial engineering. In the course of my employment as energy manager at the medical technology company Fresenius after my studies, the core questions revolved around increasing energy efficiency by creating data transparency. And here established software tools quickly reached their limits. In contrast to production processes which are carried out and monitored with a high degree of automation, the precise monitoring of energy quantities is still a great challenge. The fact that the topic of energy management goes far beyond efficiency increases and often completely new business models become possible is hardly lived in the industrial environment.

Against this background - to make energy flows more transparent and to develop new business models for energy-intensive companies - I became a shareholder of StromDAO UG in spring 2017. Here we have already implemented numerous projects as described above - and with the hybrid power product a real bang in the energy industry is imminent.

The technical implementation of the product is decisively connected with the blockchain technology. A technology which is already in practical use and on the basis of which many business models, especially in the energy industry, are possible. This is one reason why I am working on this topic in my parallel doctorate.

Professional stations:

Continental AG - Masterthesis Energy Management
Fresenius Kabi Deutschland GmbH - Team Leader International Energy Management
University of Applied Sciences Fresenius, Institute for Energy Economics - PhD Student