The blockchain in solar energy: the energy market revolution

Self-consumption is no longer considered a term that is light years away.Haven’t you noticed the change when you walk down the street? Have you noticed that a striking number of roofs have solar panels installed on them? Even street lighting.

This is a reality and the revolution in the electricity market is giving a lot to talk about. Not only are we betting on clean, renewable energy, but technology is offering us new opportunities that we could never have imagined before.

This is what is happening with the blockchain in solar energy. It is one of the big bets in the sector where the intention is to create a decentralised system that avoids the intervention of marketers and there is a direct exchange of energy between neighbours, giving rise to the emergence of energy communities.

In this article, we are going to clarify what the blockchain is, how it works in solar energy and what advantages you can extract from it.

Come on, let’s do it!

Perhaps the blockchain is nothing new to you or you have a slight conception of this term that started to become popular with Bitcoin. That’s right, the famous digital currency that was the talk of the town shortly before the pandemic, even though it was created back in 2008.But before we find out what implications it has for solar energy, we will give a brief description of this concept in order to understand it in a nutshell.

The blockchain is a kind of registry where all the information that has occurred is stored in chronological order and encrypted. And what is even better, no data or information contained therein can be altered or modified.

These are not all its advantages, here we add a few others that you should know:

Another point to highlight is smart contracts. This new modality allows both parties to comply with what has been agreed, simplifying the process thanks to the elimination of intermediaries.In this way, the associated costs are reduced and privacy is greatly increased.

As a general rule, we associate blockchain with the world of cryptocurrencies, but the good thing is that its application can be extended to numerous areas where information transactions take place over the internet, whether they are videos, images or files, among others.

What we were getting at. The blockchain in solar energy can revolutionise the energy market, creating efficient processes between producers and consumers with information that is always transparent between users without the option of modifying the data.

If the word blockchain is already familiar to you from afar, it will be quite a world to imagine how it applies to solar energy.But here we explain the simple things. As the saying goes, “the chips are down and the chocolate is thick”.

The application of both technologies aims to create a decentralised network to trade energy between users who own a solar photovoltaic installation.

Let’s be more specific.

The intention is to create a community market in which participants can buy and sell energy from each other securely, usingsmart contracts.

This initiative does not restrict energy trading between solar system owners (prosumers). It also makes it possible to sell to neighbours without PV systems. Thus, consumers who do not have solar panels will be able to benefit from cheaper and, above all, cleaner electricity.

And why decentralised?

The current centralised system causes massive energy losses in electricity transmission due to the long physical distances between generation sites and households.

The centralised pricing mechanism of the large energy companies prevents homeowners from having control over their energy and price developments.

On the other hand, you can say goodbye to surplus compensation where your distributor did not pay you enough for that kWh of clean energy.

And best of all, without the intervention of intermediaries or an organised market, where all the information remains anonymous and encrypted.

Here is a comprehensive list:

Through blockchain technology you have the power to consult from the platform of the solar energy company, all the traceability of the origin of that electricity. From when, where and by whom it was generated. A technological breakthrough in every sense of the word.

We are developing a test concept: a simple trading management system to enable the functionality to perform a trading simulation on real Spanish household data.In addition, we intend to offer other features, such as automated learning technology, to increase our clients’ savings and to be able to offer a service that is unbeatable in the market.

There is still a lot to learn, but if you want to learn more about the maturity of technologies and the concept of blockchain in the green energy market, here we talk more in depth about residential solar energy inhabited by Blockchain.

The blockchain combined with self-consumption offers surplus management between prosumers and consumers, traceability of energy origin and economic growth, among other multiple benefits.By creating a decentralised market, all information is encrypted, transparent and cannot be modified under any circumstances. Intermediaries who are inefficient and see their position endangered thanks to the involvement of this technology on the blockchain are left out.