In late summer 2015 at a research university in Belgium, an Italian graduate student new to campus attended a welcome event hosted by engineering department faculty. Sampling beer brewed by an electrical engineering student association, Simone Accornero mingled with a dozen other new classmates in his program at KU Leuven. Accornero began chatting with an engineering master’s student who had just arrived from Poland. “We hit it off,” Accornero … [Read more...]
Virtual blockchain for prosumers replicates a live utility-scale grid
Wayne Hicks at NREL describes research that’s created a virtual blockchain “prosumer” accounting system that replicates a live utility-scale grid. The goal of a real-world application is to allow countless individual households with their own electricity storage and generation to buy and sell power to each other; a truly revolutionary pathway. Clearly, it will require a system that securely accounts for vast amounts of transactions - a big enough … [Read more...]
Is Blockchain a disruptor? Or the solution to an already-disrupted energy sector
The global energy sector is already facing multiple, concurrent disruptions that are fundamentally transforming electricity markets around the world: digitalisation, decarbonisation, decentralisation, and electric mobility. It’s creating residential prosumers, with their solar panels, electric vehicles, smart thermostats (the list is growing) and a predicted global installed distributed energy resources (DERs) capacity of 530 GW by 2026, … [Read more...]
Energy majors grab blockchain “multi, multi-billion dollar opportunity”
Blockchain is being used to optimise performance across the board where wholesale digitalisation of trading processes, asset management and demand response is standard. Its adoption by sector operators is clearly visible but is everyone jumping on an untested bandwagon for fear of missing out or will its wide range of possible applications help deliver a leaner industry resulting in reduced costs and a more efficient transition? Gaurav Sharma … [Read more...]
Electricity’s future: mostly behind the meter
The electricity sector has traditionally taken good care of getting energy from power plants to customer premises. But with the arrival of distributed generation and storage, there is a universe of possibilities on the other side of the meter, writes independent energy expert Fereidoon Sioshansi. “While the industry counts the billions it has invested in assets upstream of the meter, there is probably as much if not more on the customer side.” … [Read more...]
Blockchain technology – a threat to distribution network operators?
Network operators should get involved soon in blockchain technology. If they miss the digital revolution, it will threaten their business model in the longer term and they could end up becoming pure network asset owners without operational responsibilities, writes Marius Buchmann of Jacobs University. Courtesy of Buchmann’s blog Enerquire. … [Read more...]
Why the next oil boom will be fueled by blockchain
In a globally connected economy, the impact of transitioning to blockchain technology will be profound and will likely turn any industry on its head, writes Meredith Taylor of Oilprice.com. Companies in the oil and gas industry, such as Shell, BP or Petroteq, are planning to utilize blockchain to transform energy trade and revolutionize supply chain management. Courtesy Oilprice.com. … [Read more...]
How utilities can deal with the threat of community energy
Community energy is the next big threat to utility companies – unless they manage to become part of this emerging energy economy. They still have a window of opportunity, says Craig Cavanaugh of software services company Omnetric Group, who spent six months researching the energy community market in Europe and the US. He sees three main opportunities for utilities: they can become “collaborative partner”, “community energy service provider” or … [Read more...]
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