GLOSSARY OF TERMS
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
Verification: A process we use to verify information provided to us
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
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.
Neo-Retailer: A reseller of energy services and organiser of a community energy scheme.
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.
The Joul: The cryptocurrency being created by Enosi, used as an access token to the Enosi platform.
The Spark: The cryptocurrency created by Powerledger and used as an access token to pay for use of the powerledger platform
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.
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.
Blockchain: A decentralised ledger using validation by many computers to remain secure.
Smart contract: A program running on the blockchain able to act autonomously on the behalf of a user
TGE: Token Generation event.
Ethereum: Ethereum is an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform and operating system featuring smart contract (scripting) functionality.
Stable coin: A cryptocurrency designed to remain as stable as possible
DLT: Distributed ledger technology
Sharding: Creating additional fresh blockchains which talk to each other, rather than one large blockchain, this makes verification faster
Proof of provenance: Proof as to the origins and transactional history of a unit of energy or currency
LCOE: Lifetime Cost of Electricity
Open-source software: Software with source code freely available for use, distribution and modification.
Oligopolies: a state of limited competition, in which a market is shared by a small number of producers or sellers.
Fiat currency: The national currency of a particular country (e.g. Australian Dollar)
Incumbent: An existing operator in a particular industry
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.
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.
Electricity Network: the electricity transmission or distribution infrastructure that transmits the electricity from the Electricity Generator to the consumer, i.e. poles and wires.
Electricity Regulator: government organisation that writes the rules and regulations under which all market participants operate. Examples AER, AEMC.
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.
Network Operator: owner and operator of the electricity transmission or distribution infrastructure. Typically, a regulated monopoly, can be privately owned. Examples: Ausgrid, PG&E.
(Electricity) Retailer: An organisation that markets and sells electricity to end consumers. Examples: Energy Australia, Origin energy.
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.
ISO: independent system operator.
Wholesale market: The market for the sale of goods to a retailer
Ledger: A register for recording the finances of a group of accounts. Applies to both Fiat currency and cryptocurrency.