Électricité de France (EDF) completed a proof of concept (PoC) using the public Hedera DLT to automate renewable energy certificates (RECs). Many electric vehicle (EV) drivers want to ensure the power used to recharge their cars is renewable. They can buy RECs and then redeem the RECs at the EV charging station. The automated redemption of tokenized RECs was trialed at EDF’s MASERA Microgrid demonstrator in Singapore.
In addition to redeeming the RECs, the PoC also collected data from solar panels, generators, and energy storage systems to measure the rate of green energy production put into the microgrid. This was then cross checked with the EV charging consumption to ensure the green energy usage matched.
“With our expertise in renewable energy and electrical vehicle charging, EDF is the ideal partner for this collaboration,” said Edouard Lavillonniere, Managing Director at EDF Lab Asia Pacific. “Our commitment to sustainability aligns perfectly with the vision of a greener future enabled by DLT. We believe this collaboration will drive positive change in the renewable energy sector.
Other participants in the PoC included Aramco-backed REC solution provider REDEX and web3 firm Rekursive Labs.
Europe’s CBAM makes automated solutions more urgent
The PoC is timely given the first phase of Europe’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) came into force in October. It ensures that imports have to be as carbon friendly as EU produced goods and services. Electricity is one of the imports that’s part of the initial phase.
“Europe’s CBAM has created an urgent need to calculate and track the embedded carbon of traded goods,” said Zhaotan Xiao, Executive Director at REDEX. “The complexity of this task will increase exponentially as we trend towards tracking even more attributes, and for products closer and closer to the end consumer. We believe tokenization presents a simpler and more scalable architecture for tracking multi-faceted environmental attributes across global supply chains – imagine a complex product like hydrogen or a car.”
EDF joined the governing council of Hedera in 2021. It’s also part of the Energy Web ecosystem. The electricity firm has also embraced tokenization beyond renewable energy by issuing a tokenized bond on Ethereum last year.
Meanwhile, Hedera’s commitment to sustainability is not new. Early last year it launched a $100 million sustainability fund. Other carbon projects such as a Hyundai and KIA solution use Hedera’s DLT to track carbon emissions.
