Australian real estate firm Vicinity to trial blockchain for energy management

Australian commercial real estate firm Vicinity Centres, in partnership with blockchain startup Power Ledger, has announced a blockchain trial aimed at facilitating its shopping centres to supply energy to neighboring communities who connect to its secure power network.

Founded in 2015, Vicinity Centres is one of Australia's leading retail property groups with a fully integrated asset management platform. It owns $16.1 billion of retail assets and manages some $26.1 billion in assets across the full retail asset spectrum.

The firm is now seeking to tap blockchain technology to manage its energy use and distribution in real-time, switching between solar and national grid energy.

“Vicinity is one of the first property companies in Australia to be trialling energy blockchain technology and we’re committed to continuing that leadership through our integrated energy strategy,” Executive General Manager, Shopping Centre Management, Justin Mills said, adding that peer-to-peer energy trading would also be considered as part of Vicinity’s mixed-use strategy.

“We see our partnership with Power Ledger as a significant opportunity to unlock a future of more competitive energy prices for our retailers and customers while potentially sharing clean, renewable energy to the communities surrounding our centres.”

In its official release, Vicinity said that the trial will begin at Castle Plaza in South Australia and will be the first centre to integrate the energy blockchain technology as part of Vicinity’s $75 million industry-leading solar program.

Power Ledger is a Perth-based blockchain energy trading company. It raised $34 million in an initial coin offering (ICO) last October. The startup is involved in a blockchain-powered distributed energy and water systems project in the City of Fremantle which has received government funding. In addition to a number of projects in Australia, Power Ledger also has projects in Japan, Thailand, and the U.S.