Blockchain is best known as the technology that underpins many cryptocurrencies, but it may also help Europe’s transition to a more energy efficient future. The SMARTSERV-InEExS project, funded by the LIFE programme, has developed a way of using blockchain to reward energy efficiency by businesses and consumers.
The project – run by a consortium of 13 organisations from across Europe – aims to break down long-standing silos in the energy sector, encouraging greater integration and collaboration and ultimately making sustainable energy and energy saving solutions more accessible.
The SMARTSERV-InEExS project pilots innovative business models that rethink how energy services are packaged and financed — for example by combining digitised energy systems such as smart meters and controllers with blockchain technology.
Blockchain provides a secure and uneditable ‘distributed ledger’, designed to create trust in digital transactions and provide energy companies and consumers with transparent, verified data. This approach ‘can unlock new ways to validate energy savings, incentivise behavioural change, and enable cross-sector energy services in a transparent way’, says Stavros Spyridakos, an energy efficiency engagement expert at the Institute for European Energy and Climate Policy (IEECP) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, which coordinates the project.
Since launching in 2022, the project has implemented 4 pilot programmes across Germany, Spain, Greece and Scandinavia. In Crevillent, Spain, the Enercoop cooperative energy company uses real-time information on consumption patterns, grid prices and solar production to help its members optimise their energy use. Those who make energy savings are rewarded with blockchain-based tokens that can then be exchanged for energy-related benefits within the scheme.
The scheme has led to a 3% reduction in total electricity consumption across 1 000 households in Crevillent, saving the community €318 000 and cutting their annual carbon dioxide emissions by 2 500 tonnes, the equivalent of taking around 580 cars off the road.
Public housing tenants in Berlin also received blockchain tokens for switching to rooftop solar energy. The tokens track energy savings in a transparent way to demonstrate contractual requirements are being met.
Meanwhile in Greece, the gas utility company Heron earns blockchain tokens by installing energy-saving smart controllers on their customers gas boilers. These smart systems have improved boiler efficiency, cutting energy use by almost 30% and reducing customer gas bills.
The project provides a replicable blueprint for any EU region aiming to leverage technology to unlock behavioural change, maximise renewable energy use, and create transparent, incentive-driven local energy ecosystems,’ says Spyridakos.
The SMARTSERV-InEExS project is one of more than 3 170 projects supported by the LIFE programme since 2014 that are tackling energy efficiency within Europe. Together they have received more than €193 million in funding from the EU.
The SMARTSERV-InEExS project contributes to the EU’s Energy Efficiency Directive and will support its new Clean Energy Investment Strategy.
