First to enable the buying and selling of energy in Dash
BlockCypher, leading provider of Blockchain Web Services and infrastructure, is partnering with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to demonstrate how energy transactions can be settled across multiple blockchains and integrated technologies. For the first time, energy transactions involving distributed energy resources (DER) can be settled across multiple blockchains, starting with the Dash blockchain.
BlockCypher Head of Growth Karen Hsu said, “The technology developed in this project enables people to exchange renewable energy, peer to peer. This would be important in a natural disaster or when the grid goes down for extended periods, just like we’ve seen last year across the U.S. This technology is also important as energy consumption continues to grow with more people using electric vehicles and battery powered devices. Peer to peer energy exchange could improve the match of generation and demand, reducing under voltage or brownouts during peak energy usage.”
Not only will this help those in emergency situations, it has the potential to create significant economic, societal and environmental benefits.
While other blockchain-based energy, wind, and solar projects have been explored in Austria, Australia, Germany and England, this is the first time the U.S. Department of Energy is exploring such progressive technology to facilitate peer-to-peer energy transactions. The ability to test in NREL’s Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) laboratory enables assessment of technical performance, such as hardware responses and transaction settlement speed, at the megawatt scale. While some of the blockchain-based renewable energy projects have developed energy specific coins, this is the first blockchain and energy technology agnostic solution.