Tech Team behind Synergy

With the launch of SolarShare in Singapore, built on Electrify’s Synergy transactive energy technology, it’s time we learn a little more about the team working behind the scenes. Although our colleagues in the tech team are very experienced, bringing skills necessary to building our platform, everyone is new to the energy industry. Having been thrown into the deep end, all of them managed to grasp the necessary knowledge and understanding of the seemingly complex electricity market.

Anjana Jayaweera, Head of Engineering

What do you do at Electrify?
I’m wearing two hats here at Electrify. As the Head of Engineering/Technology, I’m leading a small but an amazing team of engineers and designers, both in-house and overseas development centre (ODC). Aside from that, I am also the Lead Blockchain Developer for our energy start-up.

My main responsibility is to spearhead the technical development of—Synergy—our company’s P2P energy trading engine and deliver the strategic leadership to the tech team. In the blockchain perspective, I’m responsible for defining the blockchain solution architecture while designing and creating efficient deployment methodologies for Ethereum, and other blockchain protocols. With the advisory role to the CEO on product scaling, feature development and engineering strategies, I assist in identifying challenges and delivering strategies for implementing decentralized governance features to give token holders more control over the direction of the platform while overseeing back-office technology operations to achieve established business goals.

As we’re aiming to achieve scalability and industry acceptance, we have currently built Synergy on Amazon Web Solutions’ (AWS) cloud platform. In addition, we have been working closely with AWS’ Solutions Architects to redesign and update our current architecture. Through this migration to a micro-services architecture, we expect Synergy to be able to process in excess of 2 million participants.

What does P2P energy trading mean to you?
I’m an avid believer of low-carbon future. While working on Synergy, I learnt the importance of how market mechanisms need to be driven by technology to change behaviours to reduce the carbon footprint for a better world. The result is Synergy: how we can create a platform with a new market mechanism to impact the world. Blockchain can play a significant role in this outcome but still has a long way to go towards acceptance and commercialisation.

Arshad Zackeriya, Senior DevOps Engineer

What do you do at Electrify?
I’m the Senior DevOps Engineer at Electrify, structuring our systems for new updates, features, security protocols, while automating things like our project pipelines to be deployed with the appropriate resources. By constantly practicing these automated systems, our company is now agile and able to scale to fit varying project demands.

I manage Electrify’s liaison with AWS and am in charge of how each iteration of Synergy is brought online and managed. One of the coolest things we’ve done is using Alexa as our virtual DevOps Assistant! In this exercise as seen in our AWS Summit demo, we were able to program Alexa to allow us access to DevOps function with AWS.

The main reason I chose to work at Electrify is because of Martin and Anjana. When you have good bosses and a great team, you can make a fantastic product: I mean, with Synergy, you can literally trade energy right from your fingertips. One year in and it’s been remarkable working here. I believe our platform will make history.

What does P2P energy trading mean to you?
To be honest, this is a new thing to me. I never heard of P2P before joining Electrify and it took me a while to understand the concept. Everyone is saying they’re using green energy but who is really using it? In Sri Lanka, Kangaroo cabs recently bought some electric cars and a lot of people asked about charging. How is this sustainable? All Kangaroo cabs did was use a drone to take images of solar panels on their HQ rooftop. I believe we need to be more sustainable in the long run and we are taking the first step in leading Singapore, and hopefully the world, in the right direction.

Lilanga Gamage, Solution Architect

What do you do at Electrify?
At Electrify, I design and optimise software architecture for our real-time distributed computational systems, providing solutions to integrate different systems to work seamlessly with our innovative technology. My passion lies in electronics, the Internet of Things, research and development, apart from my mainstream software engineering discipline. For that reason, I really enjoy my work here and am very proud to be a part of history in the making, with our talented technology team, by facilitating the green energy generation. 

What does P2P energy trading mean to you?
P2P energy trading is a novel concept that came into the picture with a like-minded community and decentralized power generation. This new model of marketplaces empowers individuals to trade excess energy and help our planet to stay healthy.

With so many eco-friendly energy generation options such as solar, hydro, wind, thermal, individuals can now easily play a vital role in the energy shift by choosing the green choices available to them and that will definitely be a futuristic and efficient approach to address ever-increasing energy needs and demands in the years to come. I do believe that P2P renewable energy trading will be one of the next decade's evolving factors for mankind.

Here at Electrify, I believe my work can create optimal green energy trading platforms which will mitigate any challenges and risks that individuals face and instead, benefit both prosumers and consumers with a competitive real-time energy exchange eco-system based on demand and supply. 

Guy Aw, Business Analyst (Technology)

What do you do at Electrify?
As the Business Analyst in Technology, I round out the requirements of the business and translate it into technical requirements with Anjana as our platform requires cross sector knowledge namely in Electronics & Electrical (EE) and Computer Science. My education in EE, past experiences and interests in programming, blockchain and technology definitely boost my role in Electrify.

Another position that I hold is Synergy Specialist as I've been involved in Synergy since the conceptualization of the Synergy Product. I am able to provide insights to any R&D efforts into this platform with a good overview of the inner workings of the product.

I'm also listed as the Hardware-IoT Specialist where I am needed for some requirements in terms of engineering, testing and auditing the interfacing of the hardware we integrate with. These requirements are simple but I am glad to be able to tinker and keep myself active in my main fields of study.

What does P2P energy trading mean to you?
P2P energy trading technology is a very exciting future that the energy sector may embrace sooner than we expect. Efforts around the world have been awaiting such possibilities, aggressively developing other aspects of technologies, infrastructures, manufacturing and societal acceptance. Now, we're here, at the confluence of cloud computing, blockchain, rapid prototyping, Internet of Things, 4G/5G infrastructure and even artificial intelligence and machine learning. We are at a turning point from centralised power distribution into decentralization of generation.

Personally I have been very much interested in Power Engineering/Technologies as I have viewed it as one of, if not, the largest factors of global warming. It is a difficult problem to tackle and is also the main reason I went into EEE. I have always wanted to be part of something great and am very proud to have been a part to spearhead this effort along with Electrify, to have known that I contributed to this technology.

Kasun Wijeratne, Lead Frontend Engineer

What do you do at Electrify?
I work as a Front End Engineer at Electrify. In a nutshell, I develop, test and maintain the client side of Electrify products. This includes the development of whatever the things a user interacts with (User Interface) and manipulation of data between backend and the user with the aid of tech like React, GraphQL, JavaScript, HTML and CSS. My end goal is to optimise the performance of the user interface to the maximum while ensuring the smooth interactions and better user experience. 

What does P2P energy trading mean to you?
P2P energy trading is one of the most meaningful applications of digitalisation in the energy industry. With Synergy, a new window of opportunity has opened for everyone to consider embracing renewable energy over other alternatives because of the limitless benefits it can offer. The more energy you produce, the more money you make and most importantly, the less pollution on the grid. Additionally , this can be a better initiative to bring energy to people/countries with troubles as a cheaper and effective option. I hope to bring our iteration of Synergy beyond Singapore, and perhaps even to my homeland of Sri Lanka someday.

Thushara Buddhika, Senior Fullstack Software Engineer

What do you do at Electrify?
I am a Full-stack Developer here at Electrify and my work involves coding for back-end process, APIs and front-end User Interfaces.

What does P2P energy trading mean to you?
I had heard the concept of P2P energy trading prior to this career. However, it is only after joining Electrify that I have this opportunity to fully understand the actual process. Simply put, P2P energy trading is a paper settlement between two parties; Prosumers are households and business who produce solar energy from their solar panels installed on rooftops and Consumers are those who purchase solar energy.

When it comes to Prosumers, there are two main categories who; those without and those with excess energy.  This first category is rather straightforward. These Prosumers consume its own produced energy have no exports. The second category is the one that’s crucial to SolarShare, and any other pilots we may run in other countries or scenarios. When Prosumers produce enough solar energy for their own energy consumption and even have excess, they are able to sell these excess generation for better returns. It allows Consumers in the same grid to buy and consume that renewable energy at a cheaper cost. This is especially precious in land-scare Singapore, where most of the population live in high-rise apartments.

Graham, Senior UI/UX Designer

What do you do at Electrify?
In short, I make things pretty. I take ideas and run perspectives around them, I do (visual-relevant) researches and deliver on-screen prototypes, and the occasional banter of what works or not. In the short months since, I’ve introduced a brand new look to Electrify and beneath that, a modern and modular and design system. I’m currently working on designing an internal platform, and that includes everything from the loading screen to how users interacts with each individual button, and how we can meaningfully present blockchain transaction hashes of our transactions to the masses.

What does P2P energy trading mean to you?
The idea of being able to trade energy on the p2p network sounds incredible, and not just technologically. What used to be a far-fetched idea, is actually happening right now.  It is definitely a great boost towards reducing our carbon footprints, converting to green, sustainable energy. I feel great to able to put my work onto one of the very first p2p energy trading platform.

John Lian, System Administrator & Project Manager (Tech)

What do you do at Electrify?
I am currently wearing multiple hats in the tech department, working as the System Administrator and Project Manager of this team. As the system administrator, I help to setup, manage, monitor and maintain the backend server, ensuring no disruption in the daily operation of the business. I also step in to resolve issues on the system that the sales and marketing team experience when necessary. As the Project Manager, I serve as the bridge between the tech and other internal and external stakeholders, keeping and organizing the requirements and overseas projects, tracking budgets and prioritizing work for tech team to deliver. Working hand in hand with Anjana, we both ensure the tech team is motivated and well taken care of in terms of welfare and ultimately, well-equipped to deliver Synergy, the software powering SolarShare.

What does P2P mean to you?
As the demand for the usage of alternate energy increases over the years, I believe that P2P energy trading is the way to go as part of the sustainable plan for each and every country. There is a clear mandate for all countries to transit to sustainable, cleaner and low carbon energy production system. This transformation is inevitable. This platform that Electrify has built allows both prosumers and consumers to connect to our network, giving them the power to decide and also to contribute back to the green community, in return they will be paid fairly accordingly to their contribution. Electrify has gone through all hassle to make energy trading easier and is here to set a standard for P2P.