Australian firm Power Ledger announced a partnership with Thai Digital Energy Development (TDED) on May 25 to create a blockchain-based digital energy platform in the country.
The platform will enable environmental commodity and peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading, in order to accelerate adoption of renewable energy sources. Thailand aims to generate 25% of its electricity from renewables by the year 2037.
Public/private partnership to promote green energy use
Power Ledger’s blockchain-based transactive energy solutions include peer-to-peer energy trading and virtual power plants, along with trading in carbon credits and renewable energy certificates (REC).
TDED is a joint public/private sector venture between the Thai energy authorities and green energy specialists BCPG. The partnership with Power Ledger will see blockchain technology used to manage four BCPG clean power projects, including energy and carbon management at Chiang Mai University’s 12MW Smart Campus.
Power Ledger has been working with BCPG since 2018, when it launched a similar P2P energy trading trial in one of Bangkok’s central precincts.
Power Ledger’s head of business development and sales, Vinod Tiwari, told Cointelegraph that the trial showed the “potential of using market-based blockchain-enabled energy sharing and trading as an incentive” to accelerate deployment of rooftop solar technology.
He believes that Thailand’s focus on investment in renewable power, along with his company’s technology can help the country to achieve its goal of running on 25% renewable energy by 2037:
“The platform acts as an operating system and innovative facilitator in the transformation of energy markets from centralised to hybrid, distributed energy markets underpinned by renewable energy and distributed energy resources. This unique market-based approach acts as an incentive to accelerate distributed energy resources and renewable energy deployment in communities and helps in achieving a country’s national renewable energy targets.”
Framework open to other energy market participants
The company is also keen to use the TDED partnership framework to approach other energy market participants across Thailand, who may also want to use its blockchain energy trading technology.
Power Ledger’s TraceX REC trading platform will be deployed in Thailand this year, providing a marketplace for generators and buyers of carbon credits and RECs. It will also enable people and organizations who both produce and consume energy to trade P2P and sell excess energy within their local neighborhood.
As Cointelegraph reported, Power Ledger last month signed a deal to roll out its energy trading platform in Western Australia.