Endesa, GN in First Spanish Blockchain Deal
Two Spanish utilities Gas Natural (GN) and Endesa have conducted the first gas trade in Spain using blockchain technology, GN said February 6. It was for a modest 5.96 gigawatt-hours (550,000 m3) of natural gas.
Blockchain technology allows market participants to trade directly with each other, without intermediaries, which GN says makes transactions more cost-effective, safer and faster. The company says that by-passing intermediaries will mean this technology has “the potential to replace many physical and intellectual jobs” and could further impact the future of energy.
The trade was carried out through the Enerchain initiative (operated by German IT firm Ponton) involving 39 European energy companies that aims to develop a decentralised marketplace for energy trading based using blockchain. Among those 39 firms is Italian Enel, the majority shareholder of Endesa (70.1%), which already realised a power trade using blockchain in October 2017 with German power group E.ON.
Ponton said, on the Enerchain website February 6, that the GN/Endesa deal trade was the first of three blockchain deals to be publicly conducted at the Essen-based E-World exhibition, with the others (presumed to be for power) to be Austrian utility Energie AG Oberösterreich with German counterpart Stadtwerke Leipzig that afternoon, and Austrian power group Verbund with utility Salzburg AG on February 7.
The Enerchain initiative also includes Centrica (UK), Engie (France), Iberdrola (Spain), Statoil (Norway), Total, Trailstone (Ukrainian but operating from London), Uniper (Germany) and Swedish state power firm Vattenfall.
Canadian technology firm BTL said June 2017 it had conducted trials using blockchain for gas trading, involving BP, Eni and Austrian utility Wien Energie. In November 2017, BP and Shell announced they plan to co-invest with traders including Gunvor, Koch and Mercuria in a new blockchain-based energy trading platform.