Anyone who thinks that advances in blockchain technology are restricted to the financial market is mistaken. In the energy sector, the Energy Web Foundation (EWF) is positively impacting companies, consumers, and the environment.
Titled as a global non-profit organization, the Energy Web Foundation Company launched Energy Web in mid-2017, through the Rocky Mountain Institute, Grid Singularity, and other affiliates. But it was only in 2019 that the EWF unveiled its blockchain energy network.
Broadly speaking, it is an enterprise-grade open-source platform tailored to regulatory, operational, and market needs. A type of support for developing applications in the energy sector, to provide a more integrable, traceable, clean, and democratic model.
Why does it add so much to the environment and consumers? As the network is its basis for operation, it is possible for companies – public or private – and consumers to register and purchase their services through decentralized applications created on its platform.
It allows on-chain verification and transactions between parties in a simple and fast way. Furthermore, it executes smart contracts used by these decentralized apps.
Benefits for companies and the environment
EWF seeks to accelerate a low-carbon, customer-centric electrical system using blockchain and decentralized technologies, it enables market pioneering, as well as a greener and less harmful economic model for the environment, with the reduction of the use of carbon energy.
Here in Brazil, the estimated impacts are enormous. This is because the country is the second largest market for renewable energy certificates (so-called I-RECs), behind only China, and has contracts worth over US$26 billion being sold in the Free Contracting Environment.
With the Energy Web Foundation, in addition to being able to sell renewable energy certificates using blockchain technology, companies adapt to the regulatory and operational needs of the market and sector.
Additionally, by reducing costs and unlocking additional sources of revenue for community solar projects, the use of blockchain can increase the underutilized source of renewable electricity. This approach can also be extended beyond community solar to other renewable energies, particularly in emerging economies where access to capital can be difficult.
This meant that companies in the public and private sectors could see EWB as a blockchain partner in the energy market.
