Wien Energie to introduce blockchain-based energy products

North Peak Resources

07/02/2018 13:38

* Products may become available this year 
    * New urban area in central Vienna provides testing ground 
 
    By Vera Eckert 
    ESSEN, Germany, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Austrian utility Wien 
Energie, fresh from experimenting with blockchain applications 
in commodity trading, plans to market end-customer products soon 
in a new central Viennese urban development, it said on 
Wednesday. 
    Chief Innovation Officer Astrid Schober told Reuters during 
the German E-World of Energy fair that products such as green 
electricity provision, electric car charging or land registry 
services were within reach. 
    "We are testing blockchain-based services in Vienna's 
Viertel Zwei and once we have collected enough experience there, 
we will develop business models and bring them to market," she 
said. 
    "It may be overoptimistic but services may become available 
this year as we are trying to be active and build the know-how 
in our company fast," she added. 
    Viertel Zwei is an office and residential area that has 
marketed itself over the past decade as a green city district 
for urban living based on sustainability. 
    Blockchain is a distributed computerised record of 
transactions or other data carried out without the need for an 
intermediary and immune to alterations later. 
    It appeals to the energy industry, which must handle 
increasingly complex transactions between big and small 
producers and consumers, and corporate entities, as more 
decentralised renewable energy volumes arrive. 
    Wien Energie can access the 2 million retail and 235,000 
commercial customers it supplies already. 
    Last year, it became one of the first movers among European 
utilities by testing developer BTL's  BTL.V  Interbit blockchain 
platform to achieve satisfactory speed in gas trade 
confirmations.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N1J22QX 
    Canadian start-up BTL said it involved incumbents BP  BP.L  
and Eni  ENI.MI , although the two did not comment. 
    Energy companies hope to streamline back-office processes, 
reduce risk, better protect against cyber threats and ultimately 
save costs. 
    Analysts say it would be naturally sensitive for big names 
to openly run blockchain parallel to existing processes because 
of regulation. 
    Wien Energie is also part of Enerchain, which groups 35 
European utilities participating in tests to create a trading 
platform for electricity and gas, and eventually to perform B2B 
trading. 
    Europe has fewer than a handful of such blockchain-based 
energy trading ventures, with others including the Energy Web 
Foundation and WePower of Lithuania. 
    Schober said, however, that her company was aware of the 
disruptive potential of blockchain.  
    "If the technology means there are no intermediaries any 
more, it becomes an issue for us, so we are actively looking 
into other business models," she said. 
 
 (Editing by Dale Hudson) 
 ((vera.eckert@thomsonreuters.com; +49 69 7565 1228; Reuters 
Messaging: vera.eckert.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)) 
 
Keywords: ENERGY ESSEN/BLOCKCHAIN