Energy, Estonia, Good for Business, Technology

"As a transmission system operator, Elering has an interest in creating innovative opportunities in the energy sector by removing barriers to entry into the market. The Wepower project is a good example of how Estfeed allows the creation of new energy services through the sharing of energy data," said the chairman of the management board of Elering, Taavi Veskimagi.

"International interest in connecting to Elering's smart grid supports our goal of being the leader in the digitalization of energy systems in Europe and developing a future smart grid platform outside Estonia as well," he said.

During the pilot project, Wepower will connect its platform to Estfeed, thereby receiving hourly energy production data. The aim of the project is to test a solution that will allow Estonian investors to invest in renewable energy with the help of the blockchain platform elsewhere in the world and allow interested parties around the world to invest in the generation of green energy in Estonia using cryptocurrency.

Estfeed will provide Wepower with energy metering data proving the production of renewable energy under the same conditions as every other market participant. Neither Elering nor Estfeed will participate in the financial part of the investments, including cryptocurrency transactions.

"Estonia is the ideal place for the development and testing of the new generation of energy services, as there is already a developed smart grid infrastructure in place with which we can integrate our technology," said Wepower co-founder and CEO Nick Martyniuk. "Our cooperation is a vivid example of the potential of the blockchain platform in the renewable energy sector and a major step towards the creation of a global cryptocurrency-based energy trading system," he added.

The Estfeed smart grid is designed to allow solutions and data sources connected to the platform to exchange energy data securely and verifiably. The platform allows end consumers, energy service providers, dispersed producers and network operators to use near real-time energy consumption data.

Elering, an independent electricity and gas system operator in Estonia, maintains and develops both electricity and gas internal transmission networks and external connections. In addition to the physical networks Elering is developing a smart grid platform in order to enable efficient functioning of the market. The technical basis for the platform is the Estfeed data exchange layer that allows end consumers, energy service providers, scattered small producers and network operators to easily and securely access the data they need in their day-to-day operations.

Wepower is a blockchain-based green energy trading platform that helps renewable energy producers raise capital by issuing their own energy tokens. Wepower connects energy buyers directly with the green energy producers and creates an opportunity to purchase energy upfront at below market rates.

Wepower has developed the Ethereum Smart Energy contract tokens to standardize, simplify and globally open the currently existing energy investment ecosystem.