Iberdrola, one of Spain’s major utility providers has successfully completed a blockchain pilot to accurately validate the delivery of renewable energy to its customers.
The firm reported that the pilot goal was to speed up the decarbonization process by using blockchain technology to offer 100 percent guarantee that the energy supplied to customers comes from renewable sources.
Iberdrola Blockchain Pilot
The Iberdrola blockchain trial, which was carried out with the support of financial entity Kutxabank, was able to track in real-time the origin of energy supplied by the company from the point of generation to consumption.
The renewable energy was generated at wind farms located in Biscay and Guadalajara provinces and a hydroelectric plant located in Ourense province in the Galicia region. The clean energy was then consumed at the headquarters of Kutxabank, in the Basque Country and Cajasur in Cordoba.
To conduct the trial, Iberdrola used the Energy Web Foundation, a scalable open-source blockchain platform focused on accelerating implementation of blockchain in the energy sector.
Blockchain technology offers an efficient mechanism for monitoring energy transfers and Iberdrola says the technology can be used to allocate which assets will supply energy to a specific point of consumption. It also helped the company to cut costs and eliminate intermediaries by using smart contracts to automatically record energy data and transactions.
With Iberdrola blockchain initiative, it becomes easier to accelerate and automate renewable energy certification processes and ensuring certification is given a greater degree of traceability. In addition to the traceability benefit, it offers greater transparency and security by ensuring that energy data is recorded in a shared immutable ledger for all parties to view.
The company stated the following:
“This innovation shows us that it is a crucial catalyst in the process of decarbonising the economy, allowing traceable, secure and rapid transactions. In this case, the supply of green energy is more efficient, flexible and transparent, which incentivises the production and consumption of 100% renewable energy.”
Iberdrola also says that by guaranteeing the origin of renewable energy, it facilitates processing of energy transactions such as power purchase agreements (PPAs), thus enabling corporate consumers to purchase energy directly through a peer-to-peer network. Besides tracking renewable energy, the firm is also using blockchain to facilitate wholesale electricity and natural gas trading.
Other Energy Blockchain Initiatives
Blockchain is starting to gain traction in the energy sector with several companies already deploying blockchain solutions or actively exploring implementations. A blockchain microgrid project was launched recently in North America to facilitate peer-to-peer energy trading, and just last month Middle Eastern petroleum giant ADNOC announced a partnership with IBM to develop blockchain-based accounting platform for supply chain management in the oil and gas industry.
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