DENA Selects Energy Web to Build Prototype Identity Registry for Germany’s Energy Market
By: Energy Web
Tags: Blockchain, Distributed Ledgers, Ew News, Energy Transition, Germany

Zug, Switzerland — 13 October 2020 — Germany’s federal energy agency, Deutsche Energie-Agentur (DENA), has selected Energy Web to design and construct a digital registry for distributed energy resources (DERs) across the country in partnership with more than 20 industry players. The project will enable energy assets in Germany, such as thermostats, solar PV systems, batteries, and electric vehicle charging stations to undertake automatic registration with a decentralized ledger of identities, allowing their utilisation by the German grid for a range of services such as virtual power plants and frequency regulation.

Earlier this year Energy Web announced rollouts of similar systems on the Austrian grid with Austrian Power Grid and in Germany and Belgium with transmission system operators Elia and 50 Hertz.

According to Philipp Richard, energy systems and digitization lead at DENA, “there are still a number of tasks ahead of us for the successful implementation of a decentralized and digital energy system. Digital identities are very important to ensure that the automatic exchange of information from millions of producers, storage systems, and consumers is secure and reliable. One promising solution is an identity ledger that is being tested on blockchain technology. It could provide great insight into constructing a digital market design.”

The prototype solution will leverage the Energy Web Decentralized Operating System (EW-DOS), open-source software developed specifically to address the digital infrastructure requirements of modern, decentralised energy grids. EW-DOS uses a combination of technologies including blockchain to cater to the requirements of energy system operators, utilities, and consumers. This will also be the world’s first energy blockchain project to leverage a multi-blockchain architecture. The Energy Web stack will be used alongside the Parity Substrate client and the KILT Protocol for digital identity.

“Our work with Energy Web to bring energy infrastructure into the next digital age is critical to Parity Technology’s vision of a decentralized Web 3.0,” said Dr. Gavin Wood, CWO of Parity Technologies. “The fact that DENA selected Energy Web for this work is a strong validation of our blockchain-building framework Substrate and the overall tech stack we have developed together over the past few years.”

Six weeks ago on 24 August, the DENA unveiled the Future Energy Lab, an umbrella for several nationwide digital innovation initiatives spanning blockchain and artificial intelligence. Initially the Future Energy Lab includes three major pilot projects: a blockchain machine identity ledger (BMIL), a CO2 emissions visualization, and a smart contract register. Energy Web is leading the technical solution for the BMIL.

“This is an incredible development, not just for Germany but for the global energy sector,” said Jesse Morris, CCO of Energy Web. “Now we have the power sector of the fourth-largest economy in the world taking decisive steps toward a digitalized, decentralized future.”

The BMIL project partners include Parity Technologies (the company behind Polkadot and Substrate), BOTLabs (the company behind the KILT Protocol), Riddle & Code, and 50Hertz. The group has already kicked off and started to design and implement the technical solution.

KILT Protocol provides the identity layer based on decentralized identifiers and verifiable credentials. As KILT is built on Substrate, runtime upgrades are possible without forking the chain, features can be added as they are developed, and it seamlessly connects to the Polkadot Network.

“As the energy sector continues to digitalize and decentralize with distributed energy resources, asset identity becomes more and more important. Decentralized identifiers and verifiable credentials are key components of a broader decentralized technology solution to support the energy transition,” said Ingo Rübe, CEO of BOTLabs.

“In the journey to a decentralised energy system and as a part of the BMIL project, RIDDLE&CODE will connect two of its lighthouse projects in the energy sector to support the DENA-initiated blockchain-based machine ID registry. The first project is done in partnership with Austria’s leading utility provider, Wien Energie, and focuses on P2P energy trading within local energy communities. The second project, which is a result of collaboration with S1Seven GmbH, is based on a digital notary solution that securely tracks CO2 emissions along metal supply chains,” added Sebastian Becker, CCO of RIDDLE&CODE. “In order to connect these projects with the BMIL registry, EW and RIDDLE&CODE will leverage their innovative blockchain infrastructures, namely the professional services layer of IPDB Foundation’s open-source stack on our end.”

About Energy Web

Energy Web is a global, member-driven nonprofit accelerating a low-carbon, customer-centric electricity system by unleashing the potential of blockchain and decentralized technologies. EW focuses on our open-source, decentralized, digital technology stack — the Energy Web Decentralized Operating System (EW-DOS) — to enable any device, owned by any customer, to participate in any energy market.

In mid-2019, EW launched the Energy Web Chain, the world’s first enterprise-grade, public, open-source blockchain platform tailored to the sector’s regulatory, operational, and market needs. The EW Chain anchors a broader technology stack known as the Energy Web Decentralized Operating System (EW-DOS), a blockchain-plus suite of middleware, toolkits, and other digital solutions to support the energy transition.

EW also fostered the world’s largest energy blockchain ecosystem, comprising utilities, grid operators, renewable energy developers, corporate energy buyers, IoT / telecom leaders, and others. More than two-dozen of those companies host validator nodes for the EW Chain. Energy Web has become the industry’s leading energy blockchain partner and most-respected voice of authority on energy blockchain.

For more, please visit https://energyweb.org.

About Parity Technologies

Parity Technologies is a software development company on the bleeding edge of Web3 technologies. Founded by Ethereum co-founder and CTO Dr. Gavin Wood and former Ethereum Foundation Head of Security Dr. Jutta Steiner, Parity is well known for the Parity Ethereum client, which has contributed a great deal to the success of Ethereum to date. Parity’s mission is to give open-source software developers a space to build innovative new technologies that push our shared vision of a decentralised Web 3.0. Substrate is the highly advanced blockchain building framework created by Parity Technologies. Substrate encapsulates all the Parity team has learned over the course of building software clients for Ethereum, Bitcoin, Zcash and Polkadot in addition to numerous other private blockchains. Substrate is flexible, modular and extensible, giving developers the freedom to customize their chain for their specific use case. By using Substrate, projects can have a best-in-class tech stack that stays up to date through a cutting-edge forkless upgrade mechanism. Parity Technologies is using the Substrate framework to build Polkadot.

About KILT Protocol

KILT is an open-source fat blockchain protocol for issuing claim-based verifiable, revocable, and anonymous credentials in Web 3.0. It provides user data sovereignty and interoperability for applications built on top of it. As only trusted entities can issue useful credentials, KILT has the potential to foster new business models around trust. KILT Protocol is developed by BOTLabs GmbH in Berlin.

About RIDDLE&CODE

RIDDLE&CODE is the leading European blockchain interface company that builds hardware and software stacks and brings trusted identity to objects and people. Together with its tier one clients and partners, RIDDLE&CODE creates greater efficiency and new business models to financial markets, energy distribution, mobility and the Internet of Things.

For more, please visit www.riddleandcode.com.

CONTACT

Peter Bronski, Energy Web

+1.201.575.5545 | peter.bronski@energyweb.org