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Japanese general trading company Marubeni, in collaboration with blockchain energy startup LO3 Energy, has begun a pilot project.
According to a press release dated February 20, the project will see LO3 Energy administering a blockchain-based energy marketplace which will connect a number of Marubeni’s power production facilities, including renewables, with offices and factories around Japan in a virtual marketplace.
The objective, it said, is “to test ‘simulated’ energy transactions intending to create a full-scale commercially operational network in the future.”
LO3 Energy CEO Lawrence Orsini said that the Japanese energy sector is currently undergoing a “drastic transition,” adding that private power producers and suppliers are increasingly becoming interested in developing new customer offerings, particularly in the renewable energy space.
“Initially this project is internally focused, but it is very much driven by the desire from Marubeni to explore the opportunities that blockchain management systems can offer in the transaction of energy throughout Japan,” Orsini said.
Backed by Siemens, LO3 Energy is focused on developing blockchain-based innovations to revolutionize how energy can be generated, stored, bought, sold and used, all at the local level. Its transactive energy platform was pioneered in the creation of the Brooklyn Microgrid.
“Their [LO3 Energy’s] successful use of blockchain in the Brooklyn Microgrid and other projects around the world has shown us the potential for providing consumers with more energy choices and, crucially, improving efficiencies in energy usage,” Chief Operating Officer of the Marubeni Power Business Div. Yoshiaki Yokota said.
“This project will allow us to privately evaluate how this kind of network could work here in Japan and develop case examples that we can use to decide how and when this kind of project could be implemented widely.”
