Australian solar startup Power Ledger, the developer of a peer-to-peer (P2P) energy marketplace on a blockchain, has commenced a trial in Bangkok enabling residents to buy and sell solar electricity.
In a first-of-its-kind trial in Asia, residents and habitants of Bangkok’s T77 precinct are participating in an ‘across the meter’ energy trial that allows users’ to trade their excess electricity – generated by renewable solar power – over a blockchain marketplace that’s accessible by an 8-hectare centrally-located Bangkok precinct on the city’s electricity grid.
Participants in the affluent community’s energy trading trial will include a shopping mall, an international school, serviced apartments and a dental hospital, Power Ledger said in an announcement. Up to 635KW of solar-generated power will be traded across the four entities.
Bangkok’s Metropolitan Electricity Authority (MEA) will notably allow access to the city’s grid to enable physical transaction of energy while being plugged into Power Ledger’s blockchain platform to gain metering data for billing customers.
“By enabling trade in renewable energy, the community meets its own energy demands, leading to lower bills for buyers, better prices for sellers, and a smaller carbon footprint for all,” Power Ledger managing director David Martin told the Thomson Reuters foundation ahead of the project’s commercial launch in September.
He added:
“It will encourage more consumers to make the switch to renewable energy, as the cost can be offset by selling excess energy to neighbors.”
The Perth-based startup is partnering Thai renewable energy firm BCPG which will design and install the solar panels, meters and connection within the community. Power Ledger’s blockchain will act as the transactional layer in a platform to support 18 meter points while enabling P2P trading between individual participants, energy monitoring and invoicing.
Following the completion of the trial, Power Ledger aims to scale the solution to 31 other earmarked prospective projects with a planned power generation capacity of 2MW in a 3-year period.
“Blockchain platforms will help facilitate our distributed energy future with a better return on investment for solar panels and batteries,” Power Ledger co-founder Jemma Green told CCN in a December 2017 interview. “It also enables a low-cost, low-carbon and resilient local energy system that puts the customer first.”
Featured image from Power Ledger.
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