Russia’s National Energy Grid Operator To Test Blockchain In Retail Sector

Russia’s National Energy Grid Operator To Test Blockchain In Retail Sector

Blockchain News News
December 12, 2019 by Editor's Desk
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Russia’s national energy grid operator ‘Rosetti’ is testing a blockchain solution for payments within the retail electricity sector. The system started by Rosseti and developed by the Russian DLT startup ‘Waves’ plans to automate and make transactions between energy suppliers, producers, and customers more transparent, as a Dec. 10 blog post from Waves has drafted.
Rosetti

Russia’s national energy grid operator ‘Rosetti’ is testing a blockchain solution for payments within the retail electricity sector.

The system started by Rosseti and developed by the Russian DLT startup ‘Waves’ plans to automate and make transactions between energy suppliers, producers, and customers more transparent, as a Dec. 10 blog post from Waves has drafted.

Waves indicate that the main driver for the project is the inefficiency, opacity, and mounting debt that currently plagues the domestic industry. 

The blog post extracts data from the government of the Russian Federation, which reported that total liability for electricity as of Sept. 1, 2019, hit 1.3 trillion rubles, of which 800 billion was considered for by households.

Pain points reportedly comprise siloed or inaccessible data, consumer non-payments, failure of some payments to reach manufacturers, and inaccurate metering calculations by intermediaries.

The results of an introductory, successful pilot of Waves’ blockchain solution comprising 400 households in the regions of ‘Kaliningrad’ and ‘Sverdlovsk’ was first performed at the ‘Electric Networks Forum’ in ‘Moscow’ earlier this month.

The project’s subsequent phase will see Rosetti implement the system over the entirety of both regions and is assumed to start early next year. Eventually, the partners envision working the solution out nationwide.

Waves’ solution, which includes smart contract technology, permits households to control their energy consumption in real-time utilizing an app and automates payments between customers and energy suppliers in the network. Amongst its features, the app can suggest users switch to more suitable tariffs based on their data analytics.  

The solution is directly combined into electricity meters and includes a partnership with ‘Alfa Bank,’ the country’s largest privately-owned bank.

 Denis Dodon, director of the ‘Alfa Bank Innovation Development Center,’ highlighted the significance of partnering with a Russian DLT startup, defining the project as a national platform that forms part of a national program. 

Russia is seeking blockchain development across multiple national infrastructural and metropolitan projects, while the future of decentralized, private cryptocurrencies remains unknown, as reported.

Last year, South Korea’s most significant power provider, ‘Korea Electric Power Corporation,’ declared it would be utilizing blockchain and innovative energy solutions to develop its next-generation microgrid.

This month, the second-largest power utility in Japan has decided to extend its test of a blockchain-powered system for transacting renewable energy credits.

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