Through a loan, Japanese giant Marubeni has injected funds into blockchain-powered purchasing platform WePower. Though it’s a loan, the funds will be converted into shares later on.
With Australia running out of large energy consumers who have the capability of fulfilling the current contract requirements of at least 5 to 10 years, stakeholders in the energy sector are in an uncertain moment.
The energy sector in Australia runs on power purchase agreements (PPAs). However, the latter is full of lengthy and complicated processes, together with long term agreements which hinder other consumers from getting power.
However, WePower energy purchasing platform is the ideal platform to streamline the sector and provide stakeholders with better services.
“At Marubeni, we believe WePower platform is the ideal platform that will disrupt the traditional corporate energy procurement markets by giving every consumer, whether small or big equal purchasing power.” Yoshiaki Yokota Chief Operating Officer, Marubeni Power Business Division.
Although WePower platform is set to disrupt the workings in the traditional energy sector, its platform will revolutionise everything.
First and foremost, WePower will enable consumers to buy power directly from solar and wind producers.
Secondly, through the platform, PPA agreements will be standardised, so no complexity and lengthy processes.
The latter will unveil standard contracts which come with shorter timeframes and a lot of flexibility. Flexibility will enable buyers to sell the agreements if they no longer need power.
Besides opening up the sector and streamlining it through blockchain technology, it will generate more business. Industrial and smaller commercial companies will have come out and float more PPAs to match the growing demand.
Apart from getting cash from Marubeni, WePower had a successful Initial Coin Offering a while back where they got $40 million in one day. While WePower platform takes its place in the sector, it’s not new to this kind of platform.
In Estonia, a trial WePower was part of a trial program installed smart meters to measure energy consumption. Together with Elering, an Estonian power company, they tokenized energy in Estonia.
The partnership led to the collection of twenty-six thousand hours and 24TWh of energy production and consumption data, which were used to tokenize 39 billion Smart Energy tokens with data uploaded on the Ethereum blockchain platform.
Besides Elering, WePower has also worked with Startupbootcamp Energy Australian Accelerator (STBC).
