Today, we are pleased to announce that FUSE has completed a $12 million financing round. Fuse is a core contributor to Project Zero, which aims to address significant energy coordination issues in the renewable energy DePIN.

Fuse was founded by Alan Chang and Charles Orr, who were early employees of Revolut and made significant contributions to its early development. In 2022, they turned their attention to addressing the energy crisis. In recent years, Fuse has built a modern, technology-driven energy company, established a powerful data and engineering system, and aims to provide services to customers with higher cost-effectiveness, surpassing the existing three major utility giants.

Currently, Fuse operates large solar and wind power plants, and is engaged in the installation of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) as a UK electricity supplier, providing power services to tens of thousands of households.

However, this is still not enough to meet the challenges. In order to meet the continuously rising global energy demand, we will need to add 4,000 terawatt-hours of generation capacity every year in the next decade, which is equivalent to rebuilding an entire US power grid every year. In addition, by 2030, an additional $4 trillion investment will be needed annually for grid modernization, storage, and transmission infrastructure, which exceeds the annual GDP of Germany or Japan.

The complexity of geopolitics makes the problem more severe: thousands of jurisdictions, cumbersome regulations and regulatory agencies, and numerous market participants, each with different incentives and constraints. We are facing huge energy challenges in the next decade, requiring a new solution, and this is exactly the mission of Project Zero.

Project Zero is a renewable energy DePIN designed to accelerate the expansion and utilization of distributed energy resources (DER) by incentivizing network participants to shift demand during renewable energy periods, supporting the use of electric travel, and adding new capacity through solar panels or batteries.

The production and coordination of energy is one of the greatest opportunities in our lifetime, but it cannot be solved by traditional means alone. In operating FUSE, Alan and Charles realized that capital formation through encryption technology is key to future development. Project Zero is such an innovation: it serves as an incentive layer, providing the foundation for the most dispersed part of the energy value chain coordination.

The decentralized trend of the energy industry

The current trend in the energy industry is to engage in horizontal integration within specific areas such as generation, transmission, or retail, rather than vertical integration across the entire value chain.

Installation vendors like Trinity focus on the deployment of distributed energy resources (DERs), but do not directly engage in energy retail businesses. Instead, retail energy suppliers such as NRG Energy typically do not provide DER installation services unless these services are combined with traditional power production. Vistra Corp is a major U.S. power producer with diversified assets covering natural gas, coal, nuclear power, and solar power, and operates multiple retail brands such as TXU Energy, Ambit Energy, and Dynegy, but is not efficient in coordinating the supply and demand of its power generation portfolio. These companies mostly operate independently, limiting their ability to achieve maximum economies of scale.

These inefficient problems are particularly serious. Inconsistent data formats and incomplete consumption data make it difficult for grid operators to conduct real-time monitoring and demand forecasting. Dispersed permit frameworks in different jurisdictions hinder the scale development of renewable resource installers and service operators. Information silos hinder retailers' reasonable pricing and Risk Management.

Fuse is re-examining the retail energy supply chain from basic principles and intends to operate at every step of the supply chain to minimize efficiency losses at each stage of the lifecycle from power generation to distribution. They are focused on the mission of providing large-scale, low-cost, clean energy and are working on Reverse planning to achieve this goal.

In the near future, this means solving two specific problems:

1. The inertia of consumer transformation - How do we encourage global consumers to change their consumption habits more effectively to achieve grid load balance in demand response programs, and further adopt home renewable products and distributed energy resources (DERs) such as electric vehicle (EV) chargers, batteries, solar inverters, heat pumps, and smart thermostats?

2. Retail energy distribution standard issues - How do we integrate the decentralized processes between retail energy suppliers, grid operators, virtual power plants, and DER installation service providers, which have always made it difficult to achieve economies of scale in retail energy business through geographical expansion?

Project Zero complements Fuse's vertical integration strategy by serving as an Incentive Layer, helping consumers adjust energy consumption flexibly and develop new renewable energy capacity.

Large-scale Integration of Energy Assets

Fuse aims to transform homeowners into conscious and active participants in energy choices. What the Earth needs are consumers who actively respond to resource usage, rather than treating energy consumption as just a monthly bill item. By creating a pleasant consumer energy experience and managing the incentive allocation of Project Zero, Fuse accelerates this transformation, influencing consumption patterns and encouraging the installation of new capacity.

As a direct-to-customer energy retailer, Fuse has a structural advantage that enables it to capture and distribute value created by solving some of the most complex coordination problems in the field: such as facilitating Demand Response Programs (DRPs), operating Virtual Power Plants (VPPs), establishing low latency metering systems, and leading new interoperable data standards.

Demand Response Plan (DRPs)

By dynamically adjusting energy consumption at the edge of the grid, FUSE fully taps into the potential of demand response programs. Although DRPs can reduce peak electricity demand by 20%, most eligible households worldwide do not participate in these programs. This means that millions of kilowatt hours of electricity can be transferred or reduced during peak periods, significantly reducing operating costs.

When there is a high demand for electricity or insufficient supply, Project Zero can provide token incentives to owners of energy resources in the network (such as smart appliances, water heaters, thermostats, cogeneration systems, solar panels, and batteries), rather than just discounts, to encourage them to reduce or shift their electricity consumption. This balancing ability enables Fuse to stabilize the power grid at critical moments and keep supply and demand in line.

Source: NYC DCAS

The transition of these consumption patterns can help each household earn over $3,000 when reducing one megawatt-hour of demand. In large-scale implementation, a portion of the benefits from these programs can be incentivized and returned to consumers through TOKEN, which can be used to reduce energy bills or directly redeemed for instant rewards.

With more and more households choosing to dynamically adjust electricity consumption through the incentive measures of the Project Zero protocol, Fuse can make more competitive offers in Demand Response Plans (DRP). This enables Fuse to provide greater and more predictable load reduction or shifting capabilities, and we believe that utilities and grid operators are willing to pay extra for this.

Virtual Power Plant (VPP)

Distribuited Energy Resources (DER) installers, such as solar panels, battery storage, electric vehicles and smart appliances, often fail to cooperate with energy retailers, resulting in the inability to provide optimal system size and configuration for homes. This not only leads to a lower penetration rate of DER in the market, but also disconnects these systems from the overall power grid.

In Fuse's vision, Zero incentivizes households to increase new renewable energy capacity and ensure that these additional resources are efficiently utilized. This allows Fuse to operate as a virtual power plant, integrating all distributed energy into a flexible entity that provides valuable services to the grid.

When the grid faces high demand or supply shortages, FUSE will instruct distributed energy resources (DERs) to increase energy production or release stored power. For example, solar and battery storage systems in virtual power plants can rapidly release or absorb power to help maintain grid frequency within a narrow range; while smart thermostats and water heaters can temporarily shut off or adjust in response to demand fluctuations.

As a virtual power plant, FUSE participates in the wholesale energy market, aggregating its DER footprint in the local market to bid at a larger and more predictable scale, rather than solely as an energy retailer. FUSE can also provide services such as voltage support, which is crucial for grid stability. These services can bring substantial revenue, typically up to $100,000 per megawatt capacity annually.

By enhancing the reliability of these services, leveraging advanced metering technology and analytics-based approaches, we expect FUSE to obtain more favorable contracts and higher rewards from grid operators. Ultimately, the benefits of these open market operations will be returned to users who contribute assets to the network.

Advanced Metering and Real-time Data

One ongoing issue that energy producers and retailers face is the lack of real-time data on power plant failures, demand fluctuations, and other factors directly impacting energy production. This makes accurately pricing energy for profit a significant challenge.

By establishing a direct relationship with consumers, Fuse fills this gap by collecting random minute-by-minute data. These real-time information is transmitted to Fuse's advanced billing engine, supporting all pricing decisions. We believe this will enable companies to achieve higher profits and participate in the wholesale market, meaning that every market covered by the network can access cheaper and cleaner energy.

As our customer base continues to expand and we gain a clear understanding of the power grid that serves them, we believe that FUSE has a competitive advantage in profiting from participating in the energy market, and can help other participants in the process.

Building open protocol

In large-scale operations, Project Zero is an open platform that provides transparency to all generated and consumed energy resources, and participants in any energy value chain can access it without permission.

As Fuse accumulates more and more energy assets in the edge network, Project Zero begins to act as a powerful and trustworthy neutral layer. This is the most correct way to build a global energy system for the 21st century: by connecting available energy resources through consistent, interoperable data standards, anyone can build products and services on top of it.

The Road to Abundant Energy

Fuse's unfair advantage in competing with industry giants is to strategically eliminate barriers in machines through encryption coordination of primitive tactics. This approach should be more effective in obtaining and attracting user participation in the closed-loop generation and distribution process, making Fuse ready to become a new type of global energy retailer: not only can it trade electricity more profitably through asymmetric data and system improvements, but it can also incentivize the adoption of renewable energy and ultimately reward its customers at every step.

Alan and Charles have extensive operational experience in regulated consumer environments. The Fuse team is composed of a group of customer-oriented builders and market operators, focusing on addressing the most urgent energy issues of our time.

FUSE is gradually nurturing Project Zero to be its first core contributor, to establish an open and shared platform, and to bring us closer to the 'cheap beyond measure' energy. For more information, please visit www.zero2050.com.

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