The domestic energy sector in Russia seems to have a blockchain solution for retail payments. The national energy grid operator from Russia, Rosetti plans this to bring debt into control. As a result, the system can automate and make transactions happen between energy producers, suppliers, and consumers transparently. Designed by the Russian DLT startup Waves Enterprise, the officials consider it as one of the prominent pilot projects to electricity accounting.

Impacts on Domestic Energy Sector

Waves Enterprise identifies that the key driver for the project is the opacity, inefficiency and mounting debt that currently besets the domestic industry. The report released earlier this month on Medium.com states that the Russian government confirms there’s a huge debt for electricity. The due is almost 1.3 trillion rubles as of 1st Sept’19. Above all, households need to pay around 800 billion.

The reasons are many. Sometimes consumers fail to pay electricity bills timely. Sometimes payments don’t reach manufacturers. Furthermore, some of the reasons possibly are inaccessible data and inaccurate metering calculations by intermediaries. Due to this, testing of the blockchain technology applications in the retail electric energy market seems a promising solution. The main goal of creating and testing the application of a system based on the blockchain is to check the possibility of ensuring the unity and invariance of data for each participant in the energy market.

The next phase of the project will see how Rosetti implement the system across the entirety of both regions. Plans for successful implementation are scrutinized and the project probably brings into effect early next year.

Partnership with Alfa-Bank (Russia’s Largest Private Bank)

Waves Enterprise’s solution to incorporate smart contract technology will enable households to monitor their energy consumption in real-time. Additionally, they can use the app to automate payments. Due to this, transparent transactions will happen between consumers and energy suppliers in the network. Besides its built-in features, the app recommends users to switch to more suitable tariffs based on their data analytics.

The blockchain solution will get included in electricity meters and involves a partnership with Alfa Bank which is the country’s largest privately-owned bank.

The director of the bank, Denis Dodon comments on this solution that the partnership happens on the ground to make the plan the part of a national program. Reports also coming up that Russia is pursuing blockchain development across multiple national infrastructural and urban projects.

Blockchain Technology in Global Energy Innovation

It’s a fact that the adoption of blockchain technology in global energy innovation has hit the bullseye. South Korea’s largest power provider, Korea Electric Power Corporation, announces early this year that it would be using blockchain and other innovative energy solutions to develop its next-generation micro-grid.

This year, Japan takes the initiative to extend its trial of a blockchain-powered system for transacting renewable energy credits.