British Energy Firm, Centrica Develops Blockchain-based Energy Trading System

British energy firm Centrica is partnering with LO3 a blockchain startup to launch a local energy management system which would enable electricity users to save energy. The firm said on Monday that the new system will work based on the distributed ledger technology.

The technology Centrica is proposing is a secure platform for electricity users to buy and sell energy directly from each other. Centrica claims that the technology model would likely be the biggest blockchain project to ever be carried out in Britain by one of the top six British energy suppliers and that it could revolutionize the energy sector.

Centrica with its headquarters located at the Windsor, Berkshire is a multinational energy and services company which supplies electricity and gas to individuals and business in the United Kingdom, Ireland and North America. The company is currently the largest gas supplier in the UK while LO3 Energy which is based in New York designs platforms that utilize blockchain and other innovative technologies to solve business problems relating to energy and utilities. November 2016, LO3 came into the limelight when it designed the world’s first microgrid called “Brooklyn Microgrid.”

Both companies partnered to test the new blockchain-powered peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading system using LO3’s experience in the area. Other technologies currently in the pipeline to be tested includes a multi-party (p2p) trading between 200 businesses and residential participants.

While commenting on the technology, Mark Hanafin, the Chief Executive Officer at Centrica Business, disclosed that the partnership “is an exciting opportunity for us to test blockchain technology beyond the theoretical and put it into practice.” Mark Hanafin explained that the adoption of new digital technologies is already having a positive impact on the energy industry, helping them proffer solutions in delivering energy and services to their customers.

Blockchain Technology Helping to Manage Electricity

In response to the news, LO3 disclosed that it’ll offer the platform to large commercial and industrial companies the opportunity to place their own orders for customized power blocks that are then matched with the best offer in a competitive system.

Across the world, innovative technology powered by blockchain is been designed to help tackle contemporary challenges people face. For example, Just Verv an engineering firm has completed the first UK’s solar energy trade using blockchain technology as part of electric power regulator Ofgem’s Sandbox initiative. During the Ofgem’s Sandbox test, excess clean energy generated by a community’s solar power farm at the Banister Housing Estate in Hackney, a London district, was sent to a nearby residential building using the blockchain technology and Artificial Intelligence.