BLOCKCHAIN Five years ago, technologists excitedly started suggestion how to use blockchain for energy applications and a raft of start-ups followed, sporting distributed ledgers for the power sector. Today, the word "blockchain" is seldom heard in energy circles. While the hype may have been overblown, work continues instead on a quieter revolution to the one that was promised
O
ctober 2017, on a hotel rooftop terrace in Barcelona, Spain. The Cryptofriends Netup industry event is in full swing. Nobody has a clue where the next keynote speaker has gone and the already relaxed schedule appears to have gone out of the window. The audience, chatting and sampling free refreshments, seems unconcerned. After all, in the world of blockchain, traditional rules do not apply. Just half a decade ago, blockchain—a digital ledger or records system that is distributed across multiple sites, or nodes, instead of having a single owner— was set to upend the world we live in. Some analysts claimed blockchain could revolutionise everything from finance to democracy. Threading through the crowd at the Cryptofriends Netup event was Lithuanian entrepreneur Nikolaj Martyniuk with a vision for what blockchain could do for energy.
16
His company, WePower, wanted to create a digital platform that would cheapen energy by bypassing the complexities of electricity trading, tracking transactions with nimble blockchain technology instead of bulky centralised trading systems. “By employing technology, WePower solves the following energy market insufficiencies: global access to capital for green energy projects and green energy investments and trading as well as speed and transparency,” gushed a white paper from the start-up at the time.
BLOCKCHAIN BOOM Martyniuk was one of many who were thinking about how best to use blockchain in the energy sector. By March 2018, analyst firm GTM Research (now Wood Mackenzie) was tracking 122 energy-related blockchain start-ups, from companies—such as WePower—touting trading platforms to schemes to improve FORESIGHT
Distributed ledger Blockchain and other ledger-type technologies may still help increase the transparency of the energy sector
TEXT Jason Deign ILLUSTRATION Clara Terne
Traditional rules do not apply in this experiment