The Japanese utility Kansai Electric Power Co. has announced about its second blockchain project six months after unveiling a collaboration with Australian company Power Ledger. In an announcement, Kepco said that they have started designing a new Blockchain system to trade surplus power generated by photovoltaic cells amongst the users without the need of any utilities as third parties.

According to Kepco, blockchain has the right potential to open doors for financial transactions between consumers, without the need of any intermediary. As of now, the company is the second-largest electric utility of Japan after Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco). Now the company is working on the proposed blockchain project at its research facilities in Osaka that involves logging simulated energy transactions on the blockchain.

The project will cover multiple aspects such as real-time trading of solar energy amongst a range of potential buyers and sellers through an automated trading algorithm and then logging of transaction data on blockchain at 30-minute intervals.

Kepco said that the University of Tokyo will evaluate the research from time to time. On the other hand, Nihon Unisys will be responsible for developing IT systems for the entire project while Mitsubishi UFJ Bank will provide hands-on knowledge through its blockchain transaction expertise. The platform is scheduled to be available as a global payment network service from the 2019 fiscal year