On Thursday, Ontario’s Alectra Utilities, which has the distinction of being Canada‘s largest municipally-owned electric utility by customers served, announced the pilot launch of a blockchain-based retail energy trading platform, GridExchange.
The platform was developed at Alectra’s in-house innovation arm, the GRE&T Center, with funding from Natural Resources Canada, the government entity responsible for sustainable management of the country’s natural resources, and in partnership with energy tech firm Sunverge, Savage Data and FLO. GridExchange enables customers with distributed energy resources (DERs) such as solar panels, battery storage and electric vehicles to participate in an energy marketplace with Alectra.
An initial three-month pilot program to test the platform is being launched in 21 Ontario households.
“The GridExchange pilot project plays a pivotal role in supporting consumers by offering them greater control over their energy usage,” said Brian Bentz, President and CEO, Alectra Inc. “In alignment with Alectra’s commitment to be net-zero by 2050, the launch of GridExchange will help us continue to lower emissions and create value for customers and the Ontario power grid.”
GridExchange customers who participate in various clean energy transactions will be compensated in cash and rewards redeemable at local Ontario merchants.
In May of this year, Alectra announced that it aims to be a net-zero emissions company by 2050, making it one of the first energy distribution companies in the province to commit to a target and timeline for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. In pursuit of net-zero, Alectra has pledged to cut emissions from corporate operations by 38 percent by 2025, compared to a 2016 baseline. Alectra reported a 23 percent reduction of emissions in 2020, due largely to a reduction in fuel consumption in the company’s current, diesel-powered fleet: a fleet that Alectra will reportedly announce plans to further electrify.
