Electron, a London-based energy tech company, closed an early-stage investment round at the end of 2017 drawing support from Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO).

Headquartered in Tokyo, TEPCO is the largest utility in Japan serving millions of homes and businesses. It has more than 34 subsidiaries and 32 affiliates in 8 countries and is listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

"We are excited to work with Electron to explore and obtain additional know-how on blockchain that has the potential to significantly impact the energy market," said Shin-ichiro Kengaku, Managing Executive Officer and Chief of Global Innovation & Investments at TEPCO. "We believe it is very important to continuously seek new opportunities and create new value for society."

Electron is working to harness blockchain technology to establish more efficient, flexible, and reliable systems for the energy sector. Together with TEPCO, it will explore the potential of this cutting-edge technology to change the existing centralised structures to decentralised systems in energy transactions.

"In the next phase of energy transformation, millions of new assets will be joining energy networks at both the transmission and distribution levels. There is a huge need to create a robust shared infrastructure that can identify and record the properties of these assets - this can be underpinned by appropriate blockchain technologies. TEPCO is an energy industry leader for innovation in Japan, so we are delighted to partner with them to explore expanding our service offerings in other markets,” Paul Ellis, CEO of Electron said.

In September 2017, Electron received substantial funding from the UK Government's Energy Entrepreneur Fund to prove how blockchain will transform the market for balancing the electricity grid.