EDF Energy and UK Power Reserve, part of the Sembcorp Group, have completed the first transfer of a Capacity Market obligation  using a trading platform built by Electron and underpinned by blockchain.

Electron said that trades can take up to five days to process using current systems, which makes it harder  for distributed energy resources like batteries, electric vehicles and demand side response providers to participate.  The Electron platform incorporates the CM trading rules into the relevant product, allowing for automatic compliance checks, saving time and increasing the speed at which trades can get approved.

Chris Regan, head of business development at EDF Energy said, “This trade shows that the technology works, and it will provide a more efficient solution for our customers, allowing them greater flexibility for managing demand side response and ultimately increasing the value of participating in the schemes with EDF Energy.”

Paul Massara, chief executive of Electron, said, “This trade shows there is clear market interest trading capacity market obligations.”.

“Trading capacity obligations shouldn’t be slow and complicated, because the rules are very clearly defined” added Jon Ferris, strategy director at Electron, “However, the current systems inhibit the emergence of a flexible, liquid market. We believe that smart contracts could be used to pre-validate trades, which would enable trading to happen much faster. Today’s trade shows what could be possible.”