Powerledger and Japan’s second-largest electricity utility Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO) have today announced they will partner to trial peer-to-peer renewable energy trading in Japan.

The aim of the trial is to provide communities with cheaper energy systems to offset existing energy costs and allow generating customers to monetize their renewable energy investments by selling their excess energy peer-to-peer.

KEPCO intends to use the platform to support the development of Virtual Power Plants (VPP) where consumer-owned generating and storage capacity can be used to support local energy demands.

The trial will see KEPCO share meter data from participants, initially up to 10 homes, at the chosen sites in Osaka City, Japan. Powerledger will provide KEPCO access to the Powerledger trading platform to facilitate and monitor energy trading between participants to increase the incentive for the development of renewable distributed energy resources (DER’s).

Powerledger Managing Director and Co-founder, David Martin said it was encouraging to see a utility of KEPCO’s scale recognize the push towards deeper penetration of DERs and trial the platform in a major city like Osaka.

“The fact that KEPCO is exploring the Powerledger platform as a solution is a massive indication that the industry has accepted that change is inevitable,” Mr Martin said.

“The energy industry is traditionally conservative, and rightly so. When they implement changes consumers are relying on them to be certain it’s the right decision.”

Mr Martin said the purpose of the trial was to give KEPCO comfort in a new technology paradigm while also demonstrating the benefit of peer-to-peer trading.

“The trial will give material feedback around the technology and opportunity for adoption. We’re excited to partner with KEPCO to implement our platform in Japan and bring Powerledger one step closer to our goal of democratizing power,” Mr Martin said.

The Powerledger system will enable KEPCO to track the generation and consumption of all trading participants and settle energy trades on pre-determined terms and conditions in near real time.