Thai petroleum refining firm Bangchak Corporation Public Co. Limited (BCP) is testing a blockchain-based energy trading platform and commercial microgrid, distributed energy news site Microgrid Knowledge reports on March 7.
BCP is testing the new platform at a shopping mall attached to one of its fuel stations in Bangkok. The new system will purportedly combine 280.9 kW of commercial rooftop and canopy solar photovoltaics with 913 kWh of lithium-ion, nickel-manganese-cobalt oxide and 92 kWh of lithium-iron-phosphate battery energy storage capacity.
In other words, the microgrid generation and distribution platform will support the basic electricity needs of an average BCP fuel station in addition to generating, distributing and storing energy for shopping mall tenants.
The Green Community Energy Management System (GEMS) is “an experimental sandbox system” that will run on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. BCP reportedly aims to see whether the GEMS can be applied to its network of fuel stations across the country. Wuthipong Suponthana, the managing director of Leonics — the firm that designed the system — told Microgrid Knowledge:
“Our customer, Bangcheck Petroleum Co., wants their people to gain know-how regarding the design and implementation of microgrid systems, as well as know-how regarding the operation of microgrids as a business. Energy storage systems’ costs are coming down, and they want to be ready to implement these systems.”
Microgrid Knowledge states that the new system will allow GEMS users to save on electricity costs and simultaneously reduce pollution, which is a public health concern in Bangkok.
The Thai government has been active in supporting the development of decentralized technologies and cryptocurrencies. In January, the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC) developed a blockchain solution for e-voting. According to NECTEC, once 5G is eventually adopted, all votes will be connected with the new technology.
In February, the Thai National Legislative Assembly voted to allow the issuance of tokenized securities on a blockchain. Once the changes come into effect later this year, tokenized stocks and bonds can be officially issued on a blockchain.