IOTA has revealed a new collaboration with one of the leading smart energy companies in Europe, InnoEnergy. The two parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the aim of exploring and demonstrating the efficacy of the IOTA Tangle and subsequently creating smart community solutions. The MoU will come into effect this month.

The collaboration follows the participation of InnoEnergy in IOTA’s Data Marketplace initiative, which was launched in November 2017. The marketplace was an experiment designed to demonstrate the IOTA Tangle’s ability to securely transfer data while maintaining its zero-fee characteristic. Following a successful entry into the marketplace, IOTA and InnoEnergy came together to spur on innovation in the energy sector.

IOTA's Tangle tested in smart communities

Although IOTA has a cryptocurrency it doesn’t exist on a blockchain but stores transactions on the IOTA Tangle infrastructure, which is more of an acyclical web of transactions as opposed to a linear chain. The company is positioning its currency for the Internet of Things (IoT) industry and believes the Tangle “naturally succeeds the blockchain as its next evolutionary step”.

InnoEnergy is a technology firm that is focused on creating sustainable and energy efficient systems based on smart energy. In order to effectively explore the possibilities, InnoEnergy has joined forces with one of the largest public building owners in Sweden, named ÖrebroBostäder (ÖBO). ÖBO will provide a series of test buildings in which business models for smart communities and e-mobility can be explored.

One of the main projects in the alliance is the EVe project. This project aims to grow smart communities via the use and proper management of electronic vehicles as part of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

Talking about the partnership, Jonas Tannerstad, head of El & Automation at ÖBO, stated: “ÖBO has partnered with InnoEnergy to implement innovation solutions regarding Smart Community and energy-efficient building automation systems. We are excited about the open and innovative approaches carried out by InnoEnergy and IOTA, and we are looking forward to seeing the EVe platform up and running in Örebro.”

EVe will demonstrate how smart communities and especially the field of e-mobility can be made to function effectively and efficiently with the implementation of IOTA’s Tangle. The Head of Business Development at the IOTA Foundation, Wilfried Pimenta, explained that the move would allow the global community to see the value of the Tangle as a real-world solution.

Pimienta said: “This partnership brings the Tangle technology where it belongs: in the real world, enabling IoT devices and smart community models. The proactive, collaborative and open approach adopted by Innoenergy makes it a great partner for IOTA and its growing ecosystem to co-create and showcase the potential of the Machine economy.”

In order to seamlessly integrate the Tangle into the e-mobility program ran by EVe, the team has brought on the ElaadNL initiative. ElaadNL is a Dutch consortium of grid operators collaborating in the area of smart charging infrastructure. While looking into the possibility of using distributed ledger technology to create smart charging stations, the firm designed a charge station for electric vehicles based on the IOTA platform, which was able to process microtransactions and store data.

ElaadNL’s head of IT Architect Smart Grids and Electric Vehicles, Harm van den Brink, explained: “In order to understand how it [distributed ledger technology] really works we built the IOTA Charging Station, a real working proof of concept to show the capabilities of DLTs. It’s in our DNA to work together with other parties, to share our knowledge and technology.”

In addition to this project, the collaboration between IOTA and InnoEnergy aims to provide a clear pathway to the Tangle architecture. It is to be used by both InnoEnergy and ÖBO to run pilot programs with the aim of successfully implementing the technology into various aspects of smart community models.

Lastly, the IOTA foundation plans to encourage its wide network of affiliated companies to use the ideas from this collaboration to explore different solutions based on the Tangle. The foundation believes this is a good way to grow widespread adoption of its platform’s offerings.