TenneT, a leading European electricity Transmission System Operator (TSO), clean energy provider sonnen, renewable energy provider Vandebron, and tech giant IBM are teaming up to develop blockchain for electricity grid management in the Netherlands and Germany.

As conventional energy sources are likely to be inadequate to meet the demand for electricity in the future, TenneT said it is working to find new ways of maintaining the security of supply. As part of a broader Digital Transformation Programme, it is exploring the use of a permissioned blockchain network that uses Hyperledger Fabric to integrate flexible capacity supplied by electric cars and household batteries into the electrical grid.

“These pilot projects are part of TenneT’s broader strategy of preparing the electricity system to accommodate the growing volume of renewable energy”, TenneT CEO Mel Kroon said.

According to the official release, TenneT will be testing this new concept in two pilot projects – one with Vandebron in the Netherlands, and the other with sonnen eServices in Germany.

In the pilot project in the Netherlands, Vandebron will work with customers who own an electric vehicle to make the capacity of their car batteries available to help TenneT balance the grid, which requires balancing of supply and demand. Vandebron will provide this service to its customers without compromising the availability of their car battery. Using blockchain, each car will be able to participate by recording their availability and their action in response to signals from TenneT.

In the pilot project in Germany with sonnen eServices, the energy group of the Sonnen group, a network of residential solar batteries will be made available to help reduce the imposition of limitations on wind energy at times of insufficient transport capacity. Using blockchain, the operator from TenneT will be able to view the available pool of flexibility, ready to activate at the push of the button, after which the blockchain records batteries' contribution. This will enable sonnen and TenneT to support the integration of renewable energy sources into the German electricity supply system.

The technology for verifying and documenting the performance values of these distributed flexible energy devices is delivered using IBM Blockchain, built with Hyperledger Fabric, the release said. IBM will develop the platform to ensure the verifiability and transparency of the transactions of the small-scale batteries and electric cars.