The US Department of Energy has declared a $4.8 million federal funding to be awarded to universities working on research and development projects on various nascent technologies including blockchain.

According to the department, the funded R&D projects will focus on the development of new technologies that will help in achieving affordable domestic energy resources and enhanced electric grids.

The funding has been approved by the department’s Office of Fossil Energy and is intended to target the use of blockchain technology for secure signal data processing within distributed sensor networks for fossil-based energy systems.

Furthermore, the other research projects are aimed at exploring the use of advanced computing technologies for generating analytical results in coal plants, improving water-recycling and studying the constituent elements of fly ash.