Seems like a legit project. Article from Platts (energy industry news): E.ON, Enel in first blockchain trade „„System avoids central intermediary „„Enerchain platform being tested „„33 trading companies participating THE MARKET E.ON of Germany and Enel of Italy have for the first time traded electricity using blockchain technology, E.ON said Friday. Blockchain is the digital ledger technology behind Bitcoin. In peerto- peer applications, the technology allows trading partners to conduct deals directly with each other in seconds, without recourse to a central intermediary such as an exchange or broker. “Through direct trading, which is exempted from such additional partners, the costs of electricity procurement will also be lowered,” E. ON said. In May over 20 European energy trading firms joined forces to develop peer-to-peer trading using Hamburg-based IT company Ponton’s Enerchain framework. The group now has 33 companies working to develop a decentralized European marketplace based on blockchain technology. “The Enerchain initiative is a good example of open, cross-industry collaboration,” said E.ON’s chief digital officer Matthew Timms. “We all believe in the enormous potential that Blockchain technology has for the new energy world and especially for our customers.” The group has committed to share the costs of a full-scale prototype, integrated into participants’ existing trading infrastructure. This will support “a decentralized credit limit solution required for bilateral trading,” Ponton said at launch in May. A broad range of traded natural gas and power products are to be tested, including forward trades, spot trades, load curves and more exotic trades, all with physical delivery across regional markets. Timeframes will be day-ahead, monthly, quarterly and yearly. During a proof-of-concept period, participants will test whether a decentralized system can support the trading volumes and transactional speed known from existing markets, Ponton told S&P Global Platts in May. Blockchains can be public, like Bitcoin, or private, such as a group of traders. The individual participant receives an online wallet that can be charged up with a digital currency. The individual can then transact with other members registered to the blockchain. The blockchain’s network of registered computers continually validate transactions, building blocks of transactions that are then permanently entered in the ledger. Nobody can change the ledger, it is immutable. It is shared with all members at all times. It is not stored in one central place, reducing the risk of cybercrime. Since transactions are cleared instantaneously using the chosen digital currency, there is no settlement risk, proponents say. Neither is there any paper work or middle-man fees beyond set up and running costs associated with relatively simple computing, they say. Beyond P2P wholesale trading, the technology could deliver efficiencies in the provision of flexibility trading in regional grids, as well as in grid management processes between transmission and distribution system operators. “The potential of blockchain technology lies in disintermediation,” said E.ON’s Thorsten Kuhnel in May. “This creates true disruption; everything else is incremental innovation or optimization. Enerchain is one of the very rare projects outside the financial sector, which has real potential for disruption.” Participants in Enerchain include Alpiq, Axpo, BKW, EDF Luminus, Endesa, Eneco, Engie, Enel, E.ON, Iberdrola, Leipziger Stadtwerke, RWE, Statkraft, Salzburg AG, Total, Uniper, Vattenfall and Verbund.