Power Ledger Integrates Blockchain-Based Energy Auditing in Solar Power Asset

Australia-based blockchain energy firm Power Ledger has purchased a 250 kilowatt (kW) photovoltaic system that will utilize a blockchain-based data management and settlement system.

Per a press release shared with Cointelegraph on Jan. 13, Power Ledger purchased the system from Perdaman Advanced Energy, an Australian firm that provides clean energy consulting and project development. The new system will be located in Maddington and integrate a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) to make renewable energy trading more transparent.

Transformation of the energy market

“The renewable energy that the Maddington asset generates will be tracked using blockchain technology to provide a verified audit trail for energy generated, energy bought from the grid, energy consumed and energy dispatched to the grid,” the release further explained. By deploying blockchain, the company expects to remove any potential errors in under- or over- accounting for revenue. 

Apart from the PPA, the facility will also use Power Ledger’s environmental attributes product to automate the issuance of large-scale generation certificates and to tokenize the certificates. The development comes within Australia’s new strategy for the energy market, wherein market consumers are set to be rewarded for purchasing and selling energy in real time.

By the beginning of 2019, clean energy contributing constituted over 21% of Australia’s total electricity generation, with 38 renewable energy projects completed that year, according to data from Clean Energy Council. In 2018, South Australia alone got more than 50% of its electricity from renewable sources.

Energy industry embraces blockchain

Power Ledger launched its first trial of peer-to-peer energy trading technology in rural areas of Australia last September, intending to help outlying commercial settlements and farms improve the efficiency of their power grid and reduce associated costs.

Major initiatives by the company aim to allow such sites to monetize their surplus solar energy, while existing tariffs provide no financial compensation to those who feed unused solar power back into the energy grid.

Earlier in January, Researchers at Ireland’s Economic and Social Research Institute proposed that using a blockchain-based “forward trading system” can provide a more effective incentive for the smart management of renewable energy consumption. It was said:

“Claims on future electricity production can be directly traded between generators and consumers through blockchain in a cyber-physical marketplace [...] power contracts for future delivery are transacted on the blockchain. These claims on future generation could be embodied as nonfungible blockchain tokens with future electrical power delivery as the underlying asset.”