Plant Miner

A Plant Miner is a collection of energy data from a physical green energy generation facility, to feed Remote Miners. The energy facility is connected to an IoT device that collects energy generation data. The collected data is fractionized to feed several Remote Miners as if these Remote Miners were generating the energy.

In the early stage, Arkreen Network collected a number of solar photovoltaic plants from partners to feed their data to Remote Miners. When more and more community members who have solar panels come together co-building the network, Arkreen initiates the Community Solar Program to fully harness the power of the community.

A Plant Miner doesn’t directly get rewards based on its energy. Instead, it works as an energy data source and feeds the data to Remote Miners. For example, a 3kW-capacity Plant Miner can feed up to 30 Remote Miners each 0.1kW. The rewards the Plant Miner gets is proportional to the rewards the Remote Miners (fed by this Plant Miner) get. The reward pool for Plant Miner is separate from the other miners'. See How does Plant Miner get rewards to understand the reward calculation.

The energy generated by Plant Miner cannot mint Arkreen Renewable Energy Certificate, because it already contributes the energy data to the Remote Miners it feeds.

Data Collection Methods

There are four data collection methods to acquire the energy generation data from the energy facility (e.g. solar PV panel). The choice of which to use depends on the inverter type.

Smart Meter

The first data collection method is Smart Meter (Current Transformer meter or CT meter) meter. The Smart Meter calculates the energy by measuring the voltage and current at the inverter output. It directly measures on the power line and thus, the Smart Meter miner is compatible with any electricity system. See Smart Meter Hardware Installation Guide for more information.

Caution: For those doing the installation, advanced knowledge of how to connect meter lines (connections) including how to clamp on power lines is important, to avoid electric shock.

Smart Dongle

The second method is Smart Dongle. Smart Dongle is a data logger that can be connected to the inverter to acquire the energy generation data from the inverter. No physical connection to power lines is needed. All that’s required is a simple connection to the communications port. Because inverter models are not universally standardized, therefore, every Smart Dongle will need to be customized for compatibility with each specific inverter model from a customer’s Solar PV panel system.

Smart Plug

The third method is Smart Plug. Smart Plug is only compatible with the single-phase inverters whose AC output completely goes through a socket and the maximal output current is less than 10A. It's offen the case if the inverter is off-grid. If there is no other branch from the AC output, the smart plug can be plugged in to the AC output socket and monitors how much energy the inverter outputs.

NOTE: The smart plug hardware can also be used for energy consumption data collection. See also Consumption Plug Miner.

API Acquisition

The fourth method is API (Application Programming Interface) Acquisition, getting data from 3rd-party platforms. Some existing energy facilities are already connected to the energy platforms for management purposes. Qualified 3rd-party platforms could provide data of the energy facilities to Arkreen Network.