One of the largest contributors to climate change is the burning of fossil fuels as a primary source of energy, heat, and transportation. The burning of hydrocarbons released nearly 30 gigatons of carbon dioxide in 2016, as well as toxic and harmful compounds such as mercury, nitrogen oxide, and sulfur dioxide. While investment in renewables has been scaling, the current state of renewable energy production is far from where it should be to mitigate environmental damage caused by traditional greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). As of 2015, only 10% of global energy consumed came from hydro, solar, and wind sources. The incentives for scaling renewables that are in place today largely reflect legacy ideas, technologies and mechanisms that are inherently flawed. Participants in these programs are frustrated by the fragmentation, fraud, administrative cost, and lack of focus on true environmental impact. More must be done to mitigate the impacts of climate change and empower people to take a more active role in addressing one of the most pressing issues of our time.

Swytch was born from a collaboration between utility-scale system builders, large energy customers, the energy finance and trading community, as well as cities to address this need with incentive and governance mechanisms that actually work. At its most basic level, Swytch Token will provide an incentive for clean energy producers and fills a gap in today’s market for verified renewable energy data and consumption. Swytch will use open-source applications, protocols, and algorithms to verify and reward investments in renewable resources worldwide. The reward will be in the form of an ERC20 compliant token that aims to incentivize investments in a wide range of renewable and sustainable assets and infrastructure (rooftop solar, distributed utility solar, grid scale solar projects, wind projects, storage systems, etc.).

From large-scale industrial power infrastructure to small residential assets, Swytch Tokens can be generated anywhere electricity is produced. Swytch will provide geo-stamped credentials for production of renewable and sustainable technologies which will serve to create invaluable data sets capturing production information and driving adoption of renewables where future production will have the most impact. Furthermore, the generation and transfer of Swytch Tokens will accelerate investments in and adoption of renewable and sustainable technologies by rewarding production and creating a network in which those rewards can be exchanged. 

THE PRIMARY BENEFITS THAT SW YTCH OFFERS OVER EXISTING INCENTIVE PROGRAMS INCLUDE:
Standardization and liquidity where today there is fragmentation and market inefficiency;
Token based incentives for accelerating innovation in sustainable technologies and deploying them at a global scale; and
Decentralized, public, and secure verification of renewable energy production and transaction data and lowering administrative costs.

As a result, Swytch will serve as a compelling
solution to layer onto existing markets for verified
renewable energy production & consumption.
Improving upon existing programs will further drive
adoption in key segments, including:

Corporate sustainability programs; programs who wish to hold Swytch Token as proof of offset or as a means of investment in future renewable asset development;
Environmentally conscious consumers who wish to use tokens to fund sustainable services and/or engage in the community; and
Governmental entities, including “smart cities” who wish to hold tokens as a reserve for local sustainability tokens or to stake into the “oracle” for modelling and data consumption purposes.