To understand power ledger and the problem it aims to address, let's examine how the energy markets work today.

Credit

In most modern nations there are three major players in the energy market:
•The power plants- create the energy
•Regional transmission operators - Transmit the energy & act as middlemen who manage the supply and demand of energy.
•Consumers

This centralized model is designed to take energy from just a few sources and transmit it. Electricity is essentially fungible which simply means that 1kw is equal to another kw. However, energy transfer is most efficient when energy is created and used simultaneously. A lot of people think that power plants can just store all this energy in batteries and efficiently transmit it to consumers but that's wrong. So these regional transmission operators have to send demand requests which are often estimates and the power plant has to send that energy back to the operator who then distributes it to the consumers. As a result of this, if the operators make mistakes, the consumers are the ones who pay the burden. Sometimes they might think that they need less energy than they actually need which causes shortages. This also makes consumers incredibly dependent on this company's existense because if it goes down they all would be out of power.
Power ledger is a peer-to-peer solution that helps these energy companies interact with consumers or prosumers, who are actually creating energy, and allows them to trade. In the past these companies were built on legacy infrastructure that just allows them to only take energy from the power plants and distribute to the consumers. Power ledger on the hand is a decentralized platform that allows energy consumers and prosumers to interact with each other, set both the rate at which they want to buy and sell energy, the times they want to do it and the people they want to do it with. So it provides a lot of independence from the regional transmission operators, allowing people to take control of their energy consumption and production.

POWR Tokens

POWR tokens are the smart bonds that give application hosts the license to trade SPARKS. POWR tokens are backing SPARKS and guarantee that SPARKS have a value like any other currency. This unit will be traded by the groups who run the network of power distribution and trading at a community level.

To properly evaluate the viability and prospects of this project, I performed a SWOT analysis as follows:

STRENGTHS

Strong Team
The power ledger team, headed by Dr Jemma Green, is comprised of developers, energy specialists, software engineers and legal experts which seems like a brilliant line-up for the project.

Prominent Investor/Backers
Backing from several high-profile investors ( including Billionaire investor and ex-hedge fund manager, Mike Novogratz and Venture capitalist, Bill Tai ) is a good signal that this project is practicable and potent

Working Product
Power ledger, unlike most projects, is currently providing consumers with a product ( proof of concept ). With the help of some established energy retailers, they've deployed pilot projects in Australia, New zealand and India through micro-grid-as-a-service.

Adaptability
Power ledger was built on the ethereum blockchain but has a governance structure that allows pliability with other blockchains which may come in handy in the future.

WEAKNESSES

I honestly couldn't find any internal factor that could be regarded as a weakness in this project. I stand corrected.

OPPORTUNITIES

The world is embracing smart and clean energy especially with solar cells and windmills becoming cheaper. Blockchain will make distrubution of this energy so much more efficient and Power ledger is one of the pioneers in this field, giving them a big edge as adoption grows.

THREATS

First, some centralized energy market leaders may not react favourably to this innovation in power distribution since it might negatively affect their profits especially if power ledger and the companies currently collaborating with them succeed.
Second, considering that Power ledger doesn't actually generate electricity, they rely on partnership with this energy companies to stay in the game. If the biggest energy companies decide to not partner with or incorporate power ledger's platform to their ecosystem, that might reduce the chances of its large scale adoption. Worse case scenario would be these energy companies copying power ledger's technology and actually running the smart grid and p2p trading with their own infrastructures. I believe it's highly unlikely though but it's a possibility.

VERDICT

Power ledger is one of the best use cases of the ethereum platform. It posseses the potentials to succeed in the long-term with advancements in the field of renewable energy. Also, the possibility for individuals to invest in their own renewable energy utilities will drive the demand for an efficient energy platform and power ledger being one of the first projects to tackle this on a global scale will be a leader in developing presumer-friendly platforms. Power ledger has very good prospects and is worth investing in long-term.

Thanks for reading..

Disclaimer: This post should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice. Please perform your due diligence before investing in any cryptocurrency.