What $CLE is
$CLE is the retail-tier currency of the EDMA ecosystem. Where $EDSD handles institutional cross-border settlement and $ETT certifies renewable generation at the institutional tier, $CLE handles the retail tier: the layer where individual consumers buy clean energy, microgrid members balance their positions, and rooftop solar producers sell excess generation to neighbors. The token is pegged to a stable energy unit (one $CLE equals one kilowatt-hour at the reference market price) and is provenance-linked to $ETT so every retail transaction traces back to verified renewable generation.
The retail tier matters because the institutional credentials cannot be used directly by individual consumers. A retail customer cannot transact in one-ten-thousandth of an $ETT credential; the granularity is wrong for the use case. $CLE solves the granularity problem by operating as a fractional retail unit that references the institutional credential. The consumer transacts at retail scale ($CLE), the institutional ledger remains accurate (the underlying $ETT references), the audit trail is preserved end-to-end.
The prosumer economy
The prosumer economy is the layer where individual households both produce and consume energy. A homeowner with rooftop solar generates electricity during the day, consumes part of it, sells the surplus to neighbors or the grid, and possibly buys back energy at night when their generation has stopped. The prosumer model is structurally different from the traditional consumer-only model: it requires bidirectional pricing, fine-grained settlement, and a way to track the provenance of the energy being transacted.
$CLE was designed for this prosumer layer. Retail granularity in the unit of account means a household can sell five kilowatt-hours to a neighbor and the transaction settles correctly. Daily peg adjustment means the prosumer market adapts to wholesale price shifts without breaking the unit semantics. Provenance linkage to $ETT means the energy sold to the neighbor traces back to the original solar generation, with an attestor-signed proof at every layer. The prosumer model also extends into microgrid settlements (where members balance positions collectively) and community solar (where a shared installation serves multiple households), with $CLE handling the unit of account in both.
A rooftop solar installation, a microgrid member, or a community solar participant generates electricity. The smart meter records the generation, signed by a registered attestor (the utility, the microgrid operator, or the rooftop installer acting as a verified registry agent). The reading is submitted to EDMA L2 where the institutional-tier $ETT mints automatically at one per ten kilowatt-hours.
A retail aggregator (the prosumer marketplace platform) matches the generator with one or more consumers. The match may be direct (a peer-to-peer sale to a specific neighbor) or pooled (the generator contributes to a community pool from which consumers draw). The matching engine prices the energy in $CLE at the daily peg reference.
The retail aggregator triggers a $CLE mint to the consumer's wallet. The mint references the underlying $ETT credentials at the institutional tier, with each $CLE backed by a defined portion of $ETT supply. The reference is one-to-one in energy terms: each $CLE corresponds to a verified kilowatt-hour, the same kilowatt-hour that produced the $ETT at the institutional tier.
The physical electricity flows from the generator through the grid (or directly through the microgrid topology) to the consumer. The delivery is verified through smart meter consumption readings on the consumer side, also attested by registered agents. The delivery confirmation closes the loop between the generation event and the consumption event.
The consumer settles the transaction. For prosumer marketplace customers, settlement is in fiat through the aggregator's payment processor (the aggregator holds the $CLE balance as the matched accounting unit). For digitally-native consumers, settlement can be directly in $CLE held in a personal wallet, redeemable to fiat at the aggregator's redemption window.
The settlement receipt is anchored to EDMA L2 (and from there to Ethereum mainnet at the next batch). The receipt links the retail transaction back to the underlying $ETT credentials, which in turn link back to the original smart meter reading at the generator. A consumer or auditor can trace a $CLE retail transaction back through the entire chain to the original kilowatt-hour of clean energy generation.
Settlement and conversion
$CLE is convertible to fiat at the retail aggregator's redemption window. A retail consumer holding $CLE has three practical options: hold the $CLE as a stable retail unit denominated in kilowatt-hours (the peg means the value tracks energy prices rather than crypto-asset volatility); redeem for fiat through the aggregator's settlement window (which operates daily or hourly depending on the aggregator's integration tier); or use the $CLE to purchase additional retail energy through the marketplace.
Conversion to $EDSD operates at the institutional-to-retail boundary. When a corporate ESG program funds household solar installations or a utility runs a renewable-energy retail tariff, the institutional payer transacts in $EDSD and the conversion to $CLE happens at the marketplace's retail-tier integration. The conversion rate is the daily peg. Reverse conversion (retail-to-institutional, $CLE to $EDSD) is available at the same window, primarily used when a retail aggregator wants to clear excess $CLE balances accumulated through partner programs.
Linkage to the institutional layer
The provenance bridge between $CLE and $ETT is the structural reason the four-token system holds together. Every $CLE in circulation is backed by an underlying portion of $ETT credentials at the institutional tier. The mint mechanism requires an attestor-verified $ETT to exist before a corresponding $CLE can mint. This means even retail transactions are not isolated from the institutional audit; they are provably tied to verified renewable generation at the source.
The linkage matters for two distinct audiences. Regulators auditing retail carbon programs can trace consumer-tier offsets back to the original generation, which closes the loop on regulatory reporting (avoiding the common pattern where retail offset programs cannot demonstrate provenance). Corporate buyers funding consumer-tier programs can verify their funded kilowatt-hours actually reach consumers (avoiding the common pattern where program funding does not result in measurable retail-tier consumption). The bridge satisfies both audit requirements without compromising consumer-side UX, because the retail user only interacts with $CLE at retail scale while the audit trail runs underneath in $ETT terms.
Continue exploring the EDMA token system
$CLE is the retail layer of a four-token system. For the protocol layer (governance, fees, sequencer staking), see $EDM. For settlement (USD-pegged stablecoin replacing Letters of Credit), see $EDSD. For institutional-tier energy attestation, see $ETT (the non-transferable token minted at one per ten kilowatt-hours of verified renewable energy). For the full system view tracing value flow across all four tokens, see tokenomics. For the ESG application detail on $CLE specifically (microgrid settlements, peer-to-peer sales, consumer carbon programs), see $CLE on the ESG side.
