Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) and Japanese Conglomerate Mitsubishi Corporation has announced a partnership to develop blockchain technology that optimizes peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading.
According to the announcement, the technology will be contributing to the more efficient use of surplus electricity through a renewable source. It will create a trading environment that promotes electricity management at any given time.
Commercialization could begin after April
Starting from April, the electronic giant along with its partner will be evaluating and testing the performance of the new blockchain system before launching it into the market.
Peer-to-peer energy trading systems enable both producers and consumers to engage in direct trading as sellers and buyers. Tokyo Tech and Mitsubishi Electric want to customize their blockchain to make the new system less dependent on high-volume computations and hardware-intensive usage.
The partnership has given the electronic giant the initiative to design the P2P energy trading system as well as its transaction-completion functions. On the other hand, Tokyo Tech is responsible for designing an optimal clearing algorithm and handling blockchain technology R&D.
Providing maximum amount of surplus electricity
The new distributed-optimization algorithm will enable the computer of customers to share trading goals by matching buy-sell orders through minimal computations.
Tokyo Tech and Mitsubishi want to ensure that the maximum amount of surplus electricity will be readily available for trade in the market.
When it becomes possible to use a peer-to-peer solution for this purpose, retail power companies will no longer hold the market to ransom when responding to market fluctuations.
This is not the first blockchain-based digital energy platform, a few of them have been operative for some time. For instance, Power Ledger, an Australian firm, provides blockchain-based energy solution, which includes virtual power plants and peer-to-peer energy trading. It also offers to trade in renewable energy certificates and carbon credits. Both Tokyo Tech and Mitsubishi said they plan to commercialize the project after it has been properly tested.
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