A U.S.-based blockchain startup working to “democratize the energy
industry” has raised an undisclosed sum from oil multinational Shell and
Japanese business giant Sumitomo Corporation Group.
In an announcement published
on Wednesday, LO3 Energy said it has developed a “transactive energy
platform” to address the challenge of tracking energy from different
sources across supply networks.
“As we move into a less carbonized future, Shell aims to invest in
innovative companies that will help enable the energy transition. LO3
Energy fits right in that space,” said Kirk Coburn, investment director
at Shell Ventures.
With LO3’s system, a mobile app enables users to choose from
different local energy resources and further allows them to select a
specific supplier.
While the electricity passes through the power grid as normal, a
“private, permissioned blockchain” tracks the details of the energy
source and the purchase agreement.
According to its white paper,
LO3’s “Exergy” blockchain is aimed to “facilitate the optimal coupling
of local electric generation to parties that can value, procure, store
and utilize this generation most efficiently. The resulting transactions
will clear within a participative market-driven environment operating
as close to the grid edge as possible, with an increasing level of
automation by using self-executing contracts on a distributed ledger.”
The company said its product could power a range of business use
cases, including “peer-to-peer energy trading, energy hedging for
businesses, virtual power plants, dynamic electric vehicle charging and
demand response.”
The startup’s CEO Lawrence Orsini said:
“Energy is going through a revolution with renewable
distributed energy resources increasingly picking up market share – but
to integrate them efficiently we need to re-invent our energy networks.”
LO3 has previously garnered investments from Braemar Energy Ventures, Centrica, and tech giant Siemens.
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