GLOSSARY OF TERMS
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Customer: Someone who has the potential to become either a User or Subscriber of a cooperative's services
User: Someone registered on the systems provided by cactii to a cooperative
Subscriber: Someone/ an organisation with basic registration but can only access their community news. Assigned to a community group.
Member: Someone/ an organisation that has signed up for some service with full access to community and own data
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Verification: A process we use to verify information provided to us
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Cooperative: Co-operative, as defined by Fairtrading NSW is a democratic organisation that is owned and controlled by their members. They are traditionally based on values of self-help, responsibility, and equality.
Co-operatives are different from public companies because voting rights are based on membership (i.e. one member, one vote) rather than shareholding
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Prosumer: An energy consumer with some generation capability such that they may also sell excess energy.
Oracles: A fleet of smart meters used to determine the all members’ energy consumption and production.
DAO: Decentralized Autonomous organization.
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Neo-Retailer: A reseller of energy services and organiser of a community energy scheme.
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DApp: an application that runs on a distributed, decentralised network (such as the blockchain) and does not rely on a centralised server or 3rd party.
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The Joul: The cryptocurrency being created by Enosi, used as an access token to the Enosi platform.
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The Spark: The cryptocurrency created by Powerledger and used as an access token to pay for use of the powerledger platform
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Grid 2.0 : The new decentralised energy system which provides for small scale generation and direct perr-to-peer trading.
Peer-to-peer: Energy trading between households or businesses, rather than from a centralised generator or grid company.
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Cryptocurrency: Digital asset protected by encryption that can be used in financial transactions.
Digital Wallet: Where a user is using crypto-currencies to transact this provides the mechanism where such are notionally stored.
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Blockchain: A decentralised ledger using validation by many computers to remain secure.
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Smart contract: A program running on the blockchain able to act autonomously on the behalf of a user
TGE: Token Generation event.
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Ethereum: Ethereum is an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform and operating system featuring smart contract (scripting) functionality.
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Stable coin: A cryptocurrency designed to remain as stable as possible
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DLT: Distributed ledger technology
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Sharding: Creating additional fresh blockchains which talk to each other, rather than one large blockchain, this makes verification faster
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Proof of provenance: Proof as to the origins and transactional history of a unit of energy or currency
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LCOE: Lifetime Cost of Electricity
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Open-source software: Software with source code freely available for use, distribution and modification.
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Oligopolies: a state of limited competition, in which a market is shared by a small number of producers or sellers.
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Fiat currency: The national currency of a particular country (e.g. Australian Dollar)
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Incumbent: An existing operator in a particular industry
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Electricity Generator: owner of physical power plant electricity generation infrastructure that produces electricity that is measured in kWh. Large utility scale power plants include coal, gas, nuclear, diesel, wind, and solar.
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Electricity Meter: the physical meter meting the requirements of the measurements act located at each consumer’s premises that measures and records the amount of electricity generated or consumed in kWh.
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Electricity Network: the electricity transmission or distribution infrastructure that transmits the electricity from the Electricity Generator to the consumer, i.e. poles and wires.
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Electricity Regulator: government organisation that writes the rules and regulations under which all market participants operate. Examples AER, AEMC.
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Meter Provider: Company that supplies, installs and maintains the electricity meter at the consumer premises. This is often the Network Operator, but in deregulated markets is often provided by independent third parties.
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Network Operator: owner and operator of the electricity transmission or distribution infrastructure. Typically, a regulated monopoly, can be privately owned. Examples: Ausgrid, PG&E.
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(Electricity) Retailer: An organisation that markets and sells electricity to end consumers. Examples: Energy Australia, Origin energy.
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Smart Meter: An Electricity Meter that records the electricity in 30 min intervals or less, and is able to transmit this data (typically daily). Examples EDMI.
Retail energy license: A license which must be held to engaging in the retail sale of energy.
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ISO: independent system operator.
Wholesale market: The market for the sale of goods to a retailer
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Ledger: A register for recording the finances of a group of accounts. Applies to both Fiat currency and cryptocurrency.
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