Eventos

Good Insights from the European Blockchain Convention

A few days ago, the European Blockchain Convention, one of the Blockchain congresses of major importance nowadays, took place in a virtual way, due to the COVID 19. Among many interesting panels, BETTERGY attended to the discussion about the challenges and opportunities of this Technology in the Energy sector, as it could not be otherwise. 

Representatives of major nowadays players participated as experts in this debate: Barbora Greplova from the Energy Group of the International Association for Trusted Blockchain application (INATBA),  focused on the dialog of regulators and policy makers, Barthelemy Rouer from WPO a leader company in energy assets managements specialized in winds and solar energy, that operates 12 millions PV modules with up to 5 GWp of installed power, and Luis F. Chiroque from RED ELECTRICA, a multinational energy operator than manages the entire electrical energy transmission network (high voltage) in Spain, and conducted by Marek Sobieniecki from IKEA, the world’s largest furniture company developing an affordable solar energy program. 

 Opportunities in challenges in the Energy sector

The experts agreed that DLT applied to renewable energy will be fundamental to the energy market. Decentralization, transparency, traceability, and immutability were the Blockchain features highlighted by Bert to enable “decentralized production tools in connection to decentralized and diverse consumption”.

Several topics were touched, one of the interesting opinions was that Blockchain will not bring a significant change or transformation in the market in terms of the quality of service, rather it may affect in many other aspects such as the reduction of costs, the improvement of relationships, self/sustainable communities, etc.

In words of Barbora“blockchain could convert in something like a public good”. Although point out the lack of expertise and knowledge as one of the main challenges to address. 

Luis highlighted the traditional difficulty to reach the final customers. Indeed, REE considers that they have always been away from the end customer, and now with the creation of solutions based on Blockchain they are changing that situation. He considers that one of the main challenges will be to incorporate these technologies in the ecosystem without affecting the system operation. 

According with Marek, Blockchain has the potential of enabling everyday life for many peoples, allowing Energy distribution, peer-to-peer energy trading, autonomous agents, that will require new infrastructures. Decentralized infrastructures will be more resilient and ready to address disasters or unexpected situations. 

Very helpful and interesting debate to get a lot of insights and current perspective on the topic!