Governor visits WA company Power Ledger – Developers of world-first blockchain-enabled energy trading platform

Power Ledger is a fast growing Western Australian technology company that has developed a world-first blockchain enabled energy trading platform to make energy markets more efficient. This helps people transact energy and trade environmental commodities.

On Thursday 2nd July, the Governor received a tour of two of Power Ledger’s sites in White Gum Valley to view examples of the technology in action. Guided by Power Ledger Co-Founders and Directors Dr Jemma Green and Mr John Bulich, the Governor viewed two projects: the White Gum Valley Project – three different apartment buildings, all with solar and battery systems, and the East Village Project – a 670kw hour battery which allows 36 homes to trade with each other via the battery.

The Governor was shown how the technology works within an apartment building and how each resident is given an allocation of electricity from the solar and battery system. If users don’t consume it they can trade that with their neighbor and offset their electricity bills. All of the the data is written to the block chain and that information can be called upon so that people can see how much energy they’re using compared to everybody else.

The Governor’s reflections

“Today I saw the future. It is such a lucky thing that an organisation like Power Ledger should be founded here. To be able to look at how the whole system works, which I think I understand about 20 percent of, is a privilege.

This technology is particularly important at this time, because now we are trying to think through what is our future. The future that we now look forward to has a whole lot of developments that have simply to be accelerated if we are going to be providing employment for our young people in particular but people generally. As we sit down and think through the future of our industries we have to consider things like this.

Now that’s employment but then there is the environment. We have to get practical solutions to the way in which we behave in management of energy – if we don’t do that the future frankly in this region is about as bleak as anywhere on earth. And the thing that is really pleasing at the moment is how industry is walking out ahead of, in many ways, the political process. It’s inventions like Power Ledger that manage renewable energy into the energy supply system which are going to be absolutely critical if we are going to perform in a way in which we have to perform – for our kids, for everybody.”

The Governor had previously met with Dr Jemma Green at Government House in March 2019.

About the technology

Put simply, individuals who generate green energy (commonly from solar panels) can share or on-sell their surplus energy to their neighbours. This is especially valuable given it reduces demand on the grid, can be sold much cheaper, and incentivises greater uptake of green energy.

Power Ledger has received global recognition for their technology including winning Sir Richard Branson’s Extreme Tech Challenge, with Power Ledger co-founder Dr Jemma Green named the 2018 EY Fintech Entrepreneur of the Year.

 

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