China to Pilot Blockchain-Based Green Power Trading

China’s highest economic planning body gave the go-ahead for trials using blockchain for green power trading to start across the country, the National Development and Reform Commission said on its website.

• The NDRC officially responded to China’s two national grid operators, the State Grid Corporation of China and China Southern Power Grid Corporation, about the pilots, an unnamed representative for the NRDC said in an interview posted on the commission’s site.
• Blockchain is one of the technologies that can be implemented on green power trading because it can securely “record the information of each link of green power production, transaction, and consumption,” the interview said.
• The two companies will set up two trading centers, one in Beijing and one in Guangzhou, reported state-owned People’s Daily Tuesday.
• State Grid, the world’s largest utility operator, has applied for a patent for blockchain-based certificates of green power transactions, the commission said.
• The NDRC hopes that trading system will not only help China hit its carbon goals by incentivizing the use of green energy, but will be a Chinese solution to global energy problems.
• State Grid is all in on blockchain: It is also trialing the technology for data management.
• China is also experimenting with blockchain and carbon offsets.

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