IOTA becoming part of self-sustaining smart cities

IOTA is actively developing a use-case for its tangible blockchain and cryptocurrency within smart cities. They are currently one year into a five year trial to make seven European cities self-sustaining. IOTA is working on energy distribution, a P2P marketplace and on a blockchain-powered transport system. The blockchain startup reported on their progress in a blog post.

The European Commission approved the proposal for a smart city in the summer of last year. As a result a consortium of cities and companies received 20 million euro in funding. The group named their project +CityxChange.

Over the course of five years IOTA and its project partners need to develop, test and facilitate the adoption of technologies that allows creation and trading of renewable energies within smart cities. This should create self-sustainable energy districts. In addition a marketplace should be developed where producers and consumers can trade energy peer-to-peer.

Green energy, marketplace and eMaaS

The idea is to construct new, and upgrade existing buildings, with energy production and transmission capabilities. For example buildings will get solar panels, but also need to use their energy better by keeping warmth inside. IOTA technology allows special meters to automatically communicate and exchange energy where needed. This system is similar to IOTA's earlier announced Industry Marketplace for factories.

Besides buildings, the project is also looking at transport. IOTA is involved in the development of an eMaaS, which stands for eMobility-as-a-Service. This infrastructure allows users to book and pay for transport. In addition IOTA is building a secure and immutable audit trail that follows all the data needed for the payment. To determine the costs it checks where the journey starts, where it ends, and which transport the consumer is using.

IOTA and the green city consortium

The project received 20 million euro in funding by the European Research and Innovation program Horizon 2020. In addition, some of the project partners add 10 million euro of in-kind efforts to ensure the local implementation of the demonstration projects in Trondheim and Limerick.

The goal of the project is to see the cities of Trondheim, Limerick, Alba Iulia, Pisek, Sestao, Smolyan and Voru becoming smart positive energy cities. They need to use digital services to improve their quality of life, while generating more energy than they consume. IOTA is working with all these cities.