The development of smart cities depends on green energy, and despite the declining prices of renewable energy, the issue of energy availability remains elusive. Can blockchain become a good helper for future energy and power grids?
A report by Lazard Investment Bank in November 2017 shows that renewable energy prices are at an all-time low and are sometimes cheaper than hydropower, a 36% drop in the price of large-scale utility-scale photovoltaic power generation over the past four years. The price of 46-53 US dollars per megawatt hour is generally lower than the thermal power (60 US dollars).
Blockchain
However, the price factor is only one of the many challenges facing green energy development, and the availability of wind power and solar power is not only affected by the weather and the time, but also the power generation sites are often far away from electricity consumption.
At the end of 2016, global engineering giant Siemens and LO3Energy, a US startup, entered into a cooperation agreement to jointly develop an energy trading network based on blockchain technology. Since April 2016, LO3 has helped residents in Brooklyn, New York to install rooftop photovoltaic power generation panels Connected to the microgrid.Residents can buy and sell electricity in the microgrid and share power trading data through blockchain technology to prevent tampering.Non residents with photovoltaic panels can also purchase electricity through the microgrid.
At present, small-scale power producers can enjoy wholesale electricity tariffs as well as subsidies for environmental protection, which has the benefit of reducing long-distance power transmission to power transmission systems, and local electricity production can more easily serve the local electricity market.
LO3Energy is not the only company that uses blockchain technology to drive green power transformation Greenflex, a unit of French energy giant Total, is working with French consultancy BlockchainPartner to study the concept of 'local energy closed loop.' Lucas Elicegui, Chief Innovation Officer, Greenflex DirectIndustry explained that,
Future energy management will be more localized, and we need specialized tools to achieve this vision, with a handful of local generators now having to decide ahead of time whether to make electricity for themselves or sell electricity for production.
WePower, a Lithuanian start-up company, proposed to allow new energy project developers to sell their green energy "Tokens" to buyers in advance of large-scale power plant construction. This blockchain-based token system, on the one hand, was developed for the project Operators broaden access to financing, on the one hand, to provide preferential prices for energy buyers Commercial electricity customers to secure 'future energy use rights and lower electricity prices by purchasing' tokens' in advance of developers prior to the construction of the power plant .