Residential solar customers are already used to selling power back to the grid. When their rooftop panels produce more electricity than is needed at any time, they can send the energy to the wider network and gain a credit on their utility bill in return. That process is called net metering. In the future, however, this process may seem somewhat controlled and anachronistic. Instead, we may sell power not only to utility companies but to each other.

That’s the vision of a European startup called WePower. The operative innovation behind the project is the blockchain, the decentralized ledger technology that first came to prominence as a way to track and record bitcoin transactions. Blockchains have since been adapted to trade all kinds of digital assets from loyalty points and insurance contracts to electrons.

WePower is yet to launch, but its proposition is radical. On one side, it’s gathering together producers of renewable energy, including solar, wind and hydro plants. On the other, it’s signing up investors who pay upfront for the right to consume electricity generated by those plants. To do this, it’s created its own cryptocurrency, a token called WPR. Each token represents one kilowatt-hour of power produced and are themselves tradable on the platform.

“We’re changing how renewable energy plants are financed,” says cofounder Arturas Asakavicius in an interview. “Currently if you want to finance a set of renewable energy plants, either you have to go to a bank and take on debt, or you go to an investor and issue securities. In our solution, producers are selling energy upfront in the form of a token.”

WePower is essentially a platform for mini initial coin offerings (ICOs). ICOs are a mix between crowdfunding and conventional equity IPOs, where instead of issuing debt, equity, or perks (as on Kickstarter), companies issue coins or tokens instead. These cryptocurrencies purchase either ownership in the startup or some form of participation in the future business (like the right to buy its products).

The ICO mechanism has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for startups this year, eclipsing the value of the traditional early-stage venture capital market. The space is currently largely unregulated and could be headed for a major “correction” according to many observers. But, in the long term, it could also be an important financial innovation, one that allows companies and everyday investors to collaborate more directly, without today’s intermediaries and gatekeepers.

As well as orchestrating mini-ICOs on WePower, the company itself plans an ICO this November. The aim is to raise up to $30 million–money that will go towards building the platform and providing financial guarantees to the energy producers listing on the system. The platform stands behind collateral payments buyers put up as a promise that they will honor contracts as they come due. WePower plans to go live nine months after the ICO is completed in mid-November.