Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading company UrbanChain has partnered with two hotels, which will now secure green energy through its new scheme.
The hotels will benefit from direct energy exchange with West Suffolk Council’s (WSC) renewable generators, based around the West Midlands and close to the south coast of England.
UrbanCain’s AI system and blockchain products v-powerChain and eChain will be used to onboard the 4-star establishments to the P2P network – with the company the only in the country to have received approval from Ofgem for a P2P energy exchange system.
Additionally, the company will provide all legal, commercial and technical requirements for the direct contract between the WSC generators and the hotels.
The scheme will run over 12 months, with the first of the hotels onboarded in September and the other set to follow next month. It aims to reduce their bills by at least 25% as well as helping them to achieve carbon neutrality and maximise revenues for the WSC generators.
Managing bills through the use of a P2P system could help mitigate some of the financial strain facing the hospitality sector as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic currently, as well as the uncertainty of the price spikes in the global energy market.
The scheme follows a local renewables energy exchange project carried out with WSC at Mildenhall Industrial Estate. This was a 50-business strong project that UrbanChain launched with demand side management company GridDuck and WSC earlier this year.
“During our partner work with WSC at Mildenhall we discovered that WSC had some excess energy volumes that they wanted to sell,” said UrbanChain CEO Dr. Somayeh Taheri, “so we matched them and the hotels together to create what is now a new online local energy market where they can exchange energy directly as prosumers and consumers.”
“COVID-19 has had a dramatic financial impact on the hospitality industry and UrbanChain has the perfect solution to help hotels to recover as we continue on our scale-up journey. Not only are we reducing their energy bills, we are contributing to their net zero mission.”
Current± caught up with Dr. Taheri last year to discuss the company’s origins at the University of Manchester, its blockchain infrastructure-based P2P exchange and what was next for the company.
