Over the last decade, the energy sector has transformed drastically, primarily characterized by major technological disruptions. Power utilities have also faced constant pressures from regulatory bodies to reduce their carbon footprint and augment customer flexibility. In order to accommodate the growing requirements and meet the shareholder expectations, utilities have initiated several strategies such as the rollout of dynamic pricing for reducing peak-load, large-scale investments in distributed generation systems, and improvements in grid balancing through demand response management.
Blockchains are essentially immutable digital ledgers that can be used to securely record all transactions taking place on a given network - once data is sealed within a block it cannot be changed retroactively. This includes not only financial transaction data, but almost anything of value.
The technology is enabling decentralized communication and co-ordination, by building the infrastructure to allow peers to safely, cheaply, and quickly connect with each other without a centralized intermediary. Cryptography ensures security and data integrity, while privacy remains intact. An economic incentive framework, also known as a consensus mechanism, allows for the peer-to-peer validation of transactions through improved security, better data management, and increased ability to co-operate among multiple actors, while bypassing the need for a trusted, centralized intermediary to verify transactions.
The rising demand for power generation from renewable sources of energy across the globe has propelled the need for increasing usage of blockchain. Moreover, there is an essential concern for decentralized power generators in the electricity distribution supply chain to reduce electricity demand.
In regions such as North America and Europe, there is huge availability of renewable energy. As a result, the blockchain market is expected to grow exponentially. The blockchain in the energy market in the Asia-Pacific region is anticipated to display huge growth prospects supported by innovative technological advancements in the energy industry and increasing demand for electricity.
