Blockchain Technology Has The Potential To Revolutionize The Energy Industry. The Energy Industry Has Always Witnessed The Emergence Of Various Technologies Such As Solar Roofs, Electric Cars, And Smart Meters.

The Ethereum Enterprise Blockchain has established itself as the next emerging technology to advance the energy industry through intelligent contracts and system interoperability.

Among all the proposed uses for blockchain, energy, and sustainability are two categories that have received little attention. But, in a joint report, the World Economic Forum, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, and PwC identified more than 65 existing and emerging blockchains for the environment. These include new business models for energy markets, real-time data management, and transferring carbon credits or renewable energy certificates to the blockchain sector.

Distributed ledger technology can improve the efficiency of providers and suppliers of the necessary tools by tracing the chain of custody for minerals. In addition, blockchain offers unique solutions for distributing and distributing renewable energy.

Complex systems with many parts have the opportunity to use blockchain technology. For example, oil is one of the most traded commodities that requires a network of refineries, tankers, refiners, governments, and regulatory agencies. Legacy energy sectors such as oil and gas can also benefit significantly by using Enterprise Ethereum solutions.

A complex network of contributors suffers greatly from infrastructure that has fallen into disuse and multiple inefficient processes. Major oil and gas companies want to invest and implement blockchain technology in their internal systems, as blockchain lowers costs and reduces harmful environmental impacts.

One of the main concerns of oil and gas companies is the risk of privacy and trade secrets, and confidential transactions that they do. Blockchain networks allow only pre-verified parties to access data and select consortia. Private blockchains and consortiums use temporary solutions until public blockchains can implement the necessary privacy features businesses require.

The primary and most important benefits of using blockchain in the energy industry are:

•  Reduction in costs
•  Environmental sustainability
•  Increasing transparency for stakeholders without compromising privacy

 

What are the uses of blockchain in energy?

ConsenSys Solutions works with many blockchain products that can be tailored for multiple sustainability or energy applications, including:

How will blockchain affect wholesale electricity distribution?

Companies looking to use blockchain technology in the wholesale electricity distribution system focus on connecting end consumers to the grid. Blockchain technologies, alongside IoT devices, allow consumers to purchase energy directly from the electricity distribution network instead of retailers and intermediaries.

+Grid is a blockchain energy company focused on wholesale energy distribution. They concluded that intermediaries and retailers are the leading cause of inefficiency in the electricity market for the consumer. Retailers own a tiny part of the electricity network, and blockchain technology can easily replace services such as issuing bills and reading the amount of consumption performed by them.

Complementary retailers with a blockchain-based platform can reduce the electricity consumption on consumers’ bills by about 40%. By connecting users directly to the power grid, Ethereum allows them to purchase energy now from the grid at a cost they are willing to pay. As a result, the energy market becomes more stable, and the price of electricity consumption is lower.

How will blockchain affect peer-to-peer energy trading?

Although the bulk distribution of electricity is the main application for many companies, not all of them focus only on this part. The Blockchain In Energy report by Wood Makenie shows that 59% of blockchain energy projects are building peer-to-peer energy markets. This market is a shared network of those who buy surplus energy from other participants. These markets greatly benefit all consumers as they reduce the amount of control over the network by central authorities.

Many companies are using the commercial version of Ethereum. For example, the Energy Web Foundation uses Ethereum, Truffle developer tools, and Gnosis multi-signature wallets. As more countries can reach energy parity, the cost of renewable energy can equal or even lower the cost of conventional retail energy. Those who produce energy themselves can trade it with their neighbors.

Microgrids are groups of fully interconnected loads and distributed energy sources. Microgrids operate as a layer on top of the national grid; theoretically, they could also work individually. Australian company Power Ledger has succeeded in building Microgrids by connecting groups. Many blockchain energy companies’ future is envisioned with more extensive and fully distributed peer-to-peer power distribution networks.

How will blockchain affect electricity data management?

Blockchain helps consumers to have more control over their energy resources and use them in a better way. An immutable ledger provides secure, real-time updates on energy consumption data. Different types of energy data include market prices, ancillary costs, energy compliance, and fuel prices. In April 2018, the Chilean National Energy Commission (CNE) announced launching of a blockchain project focused on energy. The government will use the Ethereum blockchain to capture, store and track energy data.

Data is often deliberately manipulated or may be inadvertently omitted or even misreported. The financial costs of deliberate sabotage and accidental errors can devastate businesses and governments. For greater transparency, CNE provides public access to transaction and price information. The clarity of public blockchains reduces the possibility of data loss as much as possible.

How will blockchain affect commodity trading?

The gas and energy trading industry is another case where the possibility of error is eliminated by using blockchain technology. Companies have invested millions of dollars in building trading platforms tailored to the unique energy trading industry. Significant costs must be spent to maintain, update and secure these systems. Commodity trading requires maintaining a giant ledger that includes transactions and product prices at a particular time. Blockchain technology in this field is cheaper and more efficient than current systems. Immutability, security, and immediacy can all be programmed into the blockchain, eliminating the slow compatibility of large-scale systems.

How will blockchain affect utility providers?

Electricity suppliers are large and complex companies that produce electricity with power plants, solar farms, and various energy sources. Unlike the competition between companies in the financial services or banking industry, there is no competition between tool suppliers. These companies are more willing to share information and data, providing a unique opportunity for a shared blockchain ledger.

Greentech Media, a clean energy market analysis company, has identified three ways utility providers can benefit from distributed ledger technology. Enterprise Ethereum can process and validate data obtained from various devices at the power grid level before it is placed on the blockchain. Also, energy providers can use blockchain to build a system for data transactions critical for distribution and broadcasting. And lastly, distributed ledger technology can be used to develop the energy distribution system on a large scale.

How will blockchain affect the oil and gas industry?

Applying blockchain technology in oil and gas transactions and businesses reduces all the costs associated with maintaining various business systems. In addition, blockchain can also reduce costs related to labor, data management, data insights, delays in agreements, and intra-system communication. BLT Group, a major blockchain company, recently completed a pilot project with ENI, BP, and Wein Energie. This pilot showed that using blockchain technology to facilitate and trace the gas trade reduced overall costs by 30 to 40 percent.

The company has decided to test this platform with other sources besides gas. With the help of Enterprise Ethereum, instead of building a separate system for each product, the original smart contract can be used for each new product through reprogramming.

More than thousands of companies are active in oil and gas. These companies can be placed in three groups: upstream, middle, and downstream.

How will blockchain impact the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry?

Upstream is a part of the industry that deals with the exploration and extraction of resources. The upstream sector of the oil and gas industry comprises four major categories: large corporations, NOCs (national operating companies), independent companies, and oilfield services. Enormous oil and gas companies own or manage oil fields themselves. For the upstream sector, there must be dozens of stakeholders and contributors, all of whom depend on data provided by other companies. Blockchain technology optimizes large-scale data synchronization.

How will blockchain affect the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry?

Intermediary refers to the part of the industry that includes storage and transportation resources for when mining takes place. In addition, it involves the management of substantial transportation networks and the required regulations. The downstream sector of the oil and gas industry can benefit from infrastructure maintenance. On the other hand, these companies exclusively benefit from sharing information with other companies working in this field. One of the strengths of blockchain technology is the sharing of information.

How will blockchain impact the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry?

Downstream refers to companies transforming existing resources into multiple end products or selling products to end users. In addition, downstream involves managing dozens of different products. Products are sent to other consumers. Blockchain-ready resource chains optimize large-scale, multi-product matching and coordination. They also have other environmental regulations and require multiple methods of transportation.

The ability of the blockchain technology platform to capture and track supply sources can prevent a large amount of them from being wasted.

In addition to all of the above, a platform that uses intelligent legal contracts can replace the time, energy, and money currently required by all energy companies. An immutable ledger helps manage and track the data needed for all oil and gas production stages. This saves time and money.