DavidVorick
commented
1 year ago Glow Validation Basics
The Glow Protocol claims to decrease the total amount of carbon dioxide that is being emitted into the atmosphere by global energy infrastructure. These claims are supported by a combination of physical evidence and economic statistics. The physical evidence is collected by third party auditors and made available to the public. The economic statistics are primarily sourced from a non-profit data aggregator called WattTime.
Dirty Energy Displacement
As of August 2023, more than 30% of all global carbon dioxide emissions come from producing electricity for the world's power grids. If the entire world converted to solar and other renewables, the total emissions from producing electricity could be reduced by a factor of 20 or more.
Glow reduces global carbon emissions by replacing dirty energy with solar power. Glow specifically builds new solar farms in regions that are currently powered by unclean energy sources such as coal and natural gas.
WattTime uses real time grid data to determine which power plants are operational at each point throughout the day. WattTime is able to use this data to determine which power plants are reducing output when a solar farm begins producing electricity. Because WattTime knows the exact emissions profile associated with each power plant, they can create a reliable conversion from the production of solar power to an exact quantity of CO2 that would have otherwise been emitted into the atmosphere.
Because different types of power plants provide electricity to different regions, solar panels will produce different quantities of carbon credits based on their location. Elements like weather and sunlight intensitiy also play a factor.
WattTime can only provide data in regions where the grid is sufficiently well regulated for the data to be trustworthy. As of writing, this includes almost all of the continental US, most of Europe, large parts of Asia and Australia, and a handful of other places around the world. The number of regions supported by WattTime is constantly growing.
On-Site Verification
The actual power production statistics of the solar farm are collected by a Glow Certification Agent, or GCA. The GCA is responsible not only for tracking the total power production, but also verifying that the solar farm is compliant with every requirement of the Glow protocol. For example, solar farms on Glow must be brand new.
Prior to beginning operation, a solar farm needs to be audited by a GCA. The GCA will physically visit the solar farm and collect evidence that the solar farm is compliant. All of the collected evidence will be compiled into a report, and the report will be made available to the public.
The physical inspection will involve taking photographs and performing technical characterizations of the solar panel. The GCA will be looking for evidence that the solar farm is new, as well as looking for evidence that the solar farm is not new. The characterizations will provide information about the power generation capabilities of the solar panels, to verify that the real capabilities of the solar panels match the capabilities claimed by the manufacturer.
In addition to physical inspection, the GCA will collect documentation surrounding the solar farm. The GCA will be looking for legal documents regarding the ownership of the solar farm, any power deals with the electricity company, historic electricity pricing for the property, purchase agreements with the manufacturer, contracting agreements with installers, shipping data for all parts and components, and so on. If the solar farm is new, there should be an abundant paper trail of recent evidence.
As a final step, the GCA will install monitoring equipment on the solar farm to track its total power production. This monitoring equipment will be connected to the Internet and will publish the latest power readings every 5 minutes. These power readings are used with data from WattTime to determine the total carbon credit production of the solar farm.
The final report produced by the GCA will include all photos and legal documentation of the solar farm, redacting information where required by law or where necessated by common decency. The GCA will be as conservative as possible when redacting information.
Off-Site Verification
A skilled engineer is able to tamper with the monitoring equipment. The physical properties of electricity make it very difficult to prevent tampering, especially on large scale solar farms.
Instead, a GCA can use publicly available information about the weather and sunlight intensity along with the characterization data from the audit to approximate the total energy that the solar farm should be producing throughout the day. This approximation can be performed by anyone, as all of the required information is publicly available.
The general public can even use satelite imagery to confirm that the solar farm exists: any solar panel that's large enough to produce a meaningful amount of energy will be visible from space.
By combining information from the audit with publicly available data about the weather and sun intensity, a GCA can confirm that the power readings from the monitoring equipment match what is supposed to be physically possible for that solar farm. Any anomalies can be flagged, and if necessary a follow-up audit can be performed.
Validation Confidence
No validation standard is completely bullet-proof, especially when bad actors can make money by lying. The goal of the Glow validation process is not to create complete immunity to lying, but rather to create a large amount of evidence that can be referenced in the future if anything suspicious ever happens.
Between the physical audit by a trusted third party, the photographs, the legal documentation, the hardware characterization, and the ability to publicly verify many of the claims remotely, Glow should be difficult to cheat. And any cheating should eventually be discoverable due to all of the evidence that has to be created initially, and due to the fact that a solar farm can be re-audited at any time.
Glow Validation Basics
The Glow Protocol claims to decrease the total amount of carbon dioxide that is being emitted into the atmosphere by global energy infrastructure. These claims are supported by a combination of evidence and theory at both a physical level and an economic level.
Dirty Energy Displacement
The most important claim that Glow makes is that the current energy infrastructure of the world is dirty, and that solar panels provide a considerably cleaner alternative. Making this claim requires quantifying the quality of existing energy production.
As a part of international collaboration to fight climate change, most power plants around the world are required to characterize their carbon dioxide emissions. This data is available through various data markets, and can be used to establish exactly how dirty the energy production is in a given area. You can explore the US data for yourself on the EPA Egrid explorer.
Glow is partnered with a non-profit data provider called WattTime to gain highly detailed insight into the energy grid and determine exactly what the carbon impact is of alternative energy sources at any point during the day.
WattTime has real time data that monitors the grid and knows exactly which power plants are active at any point in time. WattTime also knows the exact carbon dioxide emissions profile of each power plant. When a new solar farm joins the grid, WattTime can identify exactly which power plant reduces its output in response, and therefore can establish the exact carbon impact of the solar farm.
On-Site Verification
The Glow Protocol sends a certifier, called a Glow Certification Agent or GCA, to each solar farm to verify that the solar farm exists. While there, the GCA will characterize the solar panels and install IoT monitoring equipment which can provide real time data about the power production of the solar panels.
The core piece of monitoring technology is called a current transformer. This is typically then connected to an arduino or raspberry pi which can then publish the readings to the Internet.
Once the solar panels have been characterized, verified, and equipped with monitoring devices, the certifier looks at legal records to confirm the ownership of the solar panels. The certifier needs to verify that the solar panels are brand new and recently purchased from the manufacturer, that the land ownership is properly managed, that any power agreements are properly taken care of, and that all carbon credit certification rights have been assigned to the Glow protocol and nobody else.
All of the information uncovered by the certifier is compiled into a report, and the report is openly published to the Internet. To the extent allowed by law and common decency, all details of any legal arrangements are published in the report. The report will also include specifications and details about the solar panels from the manufacturer.
Off-Site Verification
Because it is relatively easy to tamper with current transformers, the primary technology enabling the on-site monitoring equipment, solar farms must be kept honest using off-site verification techniques.
Thankfully, sunlight intensity is highly predictable, and satellite weather data is publicly available. The last required ingredient is a characterization of the solar panel that tells us how much power it will produce when it receives a certain amount of sunlight. This characterization is obtained during the on-site verification.
By combining sunlight intensity data, satellite weather data, and solar panel characterization data, anybody can produce a relatively accurate estimation for how much power a solar panel should be producing each hour. If the on-site monitoring equipment deviates significantly from the predicted values, the solar farm can be flagged for additional inspection, and potential ejection from the Glow Protocol.
Carbon Debt
The manufacturing and installation of solar panels causes carbon emissions. It varies significantly depending on a number of factors, but most solar farms emit between 1 kilogram and 5 kilograms of carbon dioxide per watt of production capacity during their construction. Once construction is complete, the carbon dioxide emissions of a solar panel is effectively zero.
In the USA, most solar panels will displace between 40kg and 100kg of carbon dioxide per watt over their lifetime, a significant overall advantage even accounting for the carbon debt of the manufacturing.
That said, the Glow Protocol aims to be accurate in its carbon reporting, and therefore needs to account for any carbon debt when certifying emissions reductions from solar farms.
The carbon debt of each solar farm is appraised during the on-site verification of the solar farm and included in the certification report. It typically takes between 6 and 18 months for a solar farm to pay back its carbon debt in full, and then the solar farm typically has another 20-30 years of emissions free energy production.
If the amount of solar power on the Glow Protocol is doubling faster than every 18 months, it's possible that Glow's overall environmental impact will be a net negative until growth slows down. That is okay, the temporary setback pays off immensley over time.