DePIN: Empowering Consumers with ‘Know Your Energy’
- Irina Karagyaur
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
Introducing KYE - Know Your Energy. Exclusive for CNN Business Middle East
On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14162, titled "Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements,” which directed the immediate withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement and other international climate commitments. This was the second time the President exited the agreement, and the news spread rapidly around the World. However many news outlets overlooked a key argument within the order: the assertion that the United States had already demonstrated its ability to achieve both economic growth and environmental protection without imposing restrictions on private sector activities.
Yet, the order also established new priorities for international energy agreements, emphasizing "economic efficiency, the promotion of American prosperity, consumer choice, and fiscal restraint in all foreign engagements that concern energy policy." After such statements, a main question keeps floating in the air: Is all that even possible?
Energy Isn’t Just a Sector of the Economy—It Is the Economy
Over the past century, access to affordable energy has been a major driver of global economic growth and human development. It has played a central role in doubling average life expectancy — from around 35 years in 1900 to over 70 today — and in reducing extreme poverty worldwide, from over 90% to less than 10%. Energy access is closely linked to key indicators such as income, education, and healthcare, making it a foundational element of modern prosperity. However, it is well known that this growth has come at a high cost for our environment since governments have to choose two out three priorities: economic growth, a clean environment, or national sovereignty — the Hobsbawm Trilemma.
Nevertheless, after a decade of energy transition, now there is an approach to achieve all three simultaneously which we call “Know Your Energy” (KYE). In short, it is the informed consumer participating while supporting clean energies.
The energy industry now features a sophisticated concert of clean energies, Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Systems, Wind Turbines, Electric Vehicles (Ev’s), Biomass Energy systems, and another dozen of players that have been classified and factually unified under the virtual umbrella of Distributed Energy Resources, or “DERs.” This revolutionary approach for the energy mix puts consumers, for the first time, in a privileged position to exercise their right to choose and materialize the expected exponential growth of these energies towards 2040.
Empowering Consumers through Energy Transparency
How can consumers truly know the source of the energy they are using? KYE is the process of identifying, understanding, and verifying the origin, sustainability, and efficiency of the energy consumed by individuals, businesses, and communities. Unlike KYC and KYB, which focus solely on regulatory compliance, KYE empowers consumers who via decentralized blockchain-based verifications add the quality certification layer.
While KYE is still emerging as a tech-driven assessment, it has the potential to become a legal standard, shaping reputation in energy markets. As an outcome, supporting clean energy not only aligns with environmental responsibility but also strengthens brand recognition, enables reward systems, and advances meaningful social initiatives.
Securing our Human Right to the Environment
By processing real-time energy data from smart meters and IoT devices, nodes play a crucial role in facilitating tracking energy usage, validating the source, efficiency, and sustainability of the energy consumed. In blockchain-based energy architectures, nodes increasingly improve the verification process, reducing the likelihood of data manipulation by any single entity. A greater number of nodes augments the security and auditability of the KEY information required to deliver a gold standard “Energy Quality Certifications” (EQC).
These certifications are already becoming the standard for verifying the origin and management of energy, contributing to rapid growth in the global renewable energy certificates (RECs) market—from $13.71 billion in 2023 to an expected $17.54 billion by 2024, at a CAGR of 28%. Projects like Power Ledger, Brooklyn Microgrid, Energy Web, and the TenneT-sonnen collaboration exemplify this model, with decentralized participants functioning as nodes to ensure transparency in energy distribution and trading.
DePIN for KYE in Practice
AutoGreenCharge is an application developed by the Energy Web Foundation that enables electric vehicle (EV) drivers and fleet owners to trace the origin of the electricity used to charge their vehicles, ensuring it comes from renewable sources. By connecting to the user's EV account, the app collects charging data—such as location, time, and amount of electricity charged—and matches it with renewable energy production, providing users with insights into the greenness of their charging sessions.
Another example is how Peaq Network is actively developing Modular DePIN Functions, which aim to provide ready-to-use modular functions to power and tokenize vehicles, robots, and devices on any Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN).
Siemens has developed "Pebbles," a blockchain-based peer-to-peer energy trading platform that supports smart grids and efficient energy distribution. The company also offers tools for energy monitoring, such as SIMATIC Energy Management Software, which tracks electricity, gas, and water usage, and the Energy Manager application, which provides visual insights into energy flows across sources and consumers.
What's next for the adoption of DePIN?
Technological upgrade of energy infrastructures is of key importance, but so is the deployment of assertive regulation. If policymakers are not forward thinking, they will hinder the growth of their own countries and push investors out to other friendly regions.
Society as a whole is allowed to access the $1.3 trillion global energy trading market, merging the value chain with the supply chain concept, while unlocking unprecedented business opportunities and societal benefits on a massive scale. As it’s widely accepted, energy is not a sector of the economy - it is the economy. Just as social media platform X empowered individuals to become the media, DePIN and blockchain-based energy companies empower people to become the energy. For the first time in history, communities have the opportunity to actively participate in or “belong” to the energy industry.