Energy supplier Rebel Energy and peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange company UrbanChain have announced a “landmark” partnership.
The collaboration is designed to bring green energy to UK households, allowing customers to use local and traceable renewable energy, the companies said.
More than 3,000 homes have signed up to the P2P energy exchange market already and are spread across the UK, including in Scotland, Wales, Manchester, Birmingham, London and the South West.
Dan Bates, CEO at Rebel Energy, said: “People increasingly want to know exactly how their energy is generated so that they can make informed choices. We are working together to make the electricity supplied to customers fully traceable to the UK farm where it was produced.”
The collaboration between Rebel Energy and UrbanChain will decentralise the generation of energy and connect domestic households to small-scale renewable energy generation, Bates continued.
The first homes signed up in the P2P exchange are being supplied with traceable renewable energy from a combination of solar, wind and hydro assets in their specific localities.
UrbanChain has been growing its P2P network over the last year, including partnering with PPAYA to match green generators and corporate customers in March 2022 and welcoming a housing association in December 2021.
Earlier in 2021, the company also teamed up with demand side management company GridDuck and West Suffolk Council for an innovative energy trading project at Milden Hall Industrial Park.
Dr. Somayeh Taheri, CEO at UrbanChain, said: “It truly is a first as green energy up until now has always been affected by ups and downs in the gas market. And that’s because renewables are intermittent and green energy is fed into the wholesale market before customers buy it back at much higher prices.”
When the company first brought businesses and renewable energy generators into the P2P exchange market five years ago, the mission was to alleviate fuel poverty and fix a “broken inefficient” energy market model, said Taheri.
“While we remain the only British renewable energy exchange we have now started bringing domestic households into the exchange so they can receive the same benefits our AI and blockchain driven technology platform enables,” added Taheri.
The partnership between both companies has mass scalable potential according to Bates, who launched Rebel Energy in 2020 with digitalisation at its core.
In 2020, Current± caught up with Taheri and UrbanChain’s CCO Mo Hajhashem to discuss the benefits of a P2P market and how the blockchain infrastructure that underpins it works.
