An Australian startup has announced the signing of a three-year deal that would see it roll out blockchain energy trading technology to around 100 apartments in Western Australia.
The deal would see the blockchain-focused company install its platform across 10 residential developments that will be built in the Perth metropolitan region.
Through a joint venture called Connected Communities Energy with Perth’s largest affordable home and land developer, the start-up’s blockchain technology will be developed for use at Nicheliving’s SkyHomes Inglewood development, as well as at future housing developments over the next three years, to manage energy delivery and trading.
The complex will boast 62 apartments and according to the companies, will deliver 100% renewable energy through an embedded electricity network and solar PV and storage microgrid.
It will then move to a further 40 apartments in East Cannington.
The start-up’s Co-founder and Chairman stated that the firm is seeing an emerging trend of project developers considering more low cost and low carbon energy supplies during the design phase of their projects. Power Ledger’s platform incentivises homeowners to invest in solar energy infrastructure.
The company’s platform would track energy consumption and transactions, enabling residential developments to sell surplus solar energy to other residents to “make the distribution of power more efficient” and “make the most out of the solar energy generated”.
The Managing Director of the home and land developer stated that the relationship with the start-up will help the company deliver on its commitment to building more sustainable communities for Western Australian homeowners.
The Perth-based company said it is also working with property developers to implement its energy trading software to provide solar and storage in people’s homes as well as in shopping centre developments.
The start-up’s platform is currently active in the National Electricity Network (NEM) in South Australia. It added that it expects the platform’s reach to expand to the east coast of Australia within the next six months.
The company also touted it had active projects in countries including Austria, Thailand, Japan, Malaysia, and the United States.
Pushing renewable energy
According to another article, The West Australia Labor government has unveiled a new energy roadmap that puts community battery storage at the top of its proposals to embrace a wholesale switch to distributed energy sources such as rooftop solar panels, household and community batteries, electric vehicles and microgrids.
The Distributed Energy Roadmap – nearly a year in the making – was unveiled on the weekend by the state energy minister, and it forms a key part of its Energy Transformation Taskforce, charged with dealing with the switch from coal and then other fossil fuels, to a grid dominated by renewables and storage.
W.A., thanks largely to the disinterest of the previous conservative government, has trailed the rest of the country in the installation of large-scale wind and solar – although it is beginning to catch up, both on its main grid and through miners in off-grid and in private networks.
But the state has been among the leaders in the uptake of rooftop solar, which has been installed by one in three households, meaning the output of rooftop solar is three times as much at certain times than that of the biggest coal generator and accounts for up to 45 per cent of demand.
The minister notes that the uptake of rooftop solar is expected to lift to one in two households, and at least that for business.
