South Korea’s Largest Power Utility Company (KEPCO) is Set to Launch a Blockchain-based Microgrid
A recent report has made it known that Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) has initiated plans targeted at developing a blockchain-based microgrid. South Korea’s largest power utility company now refers to the microgrid as — ‘KEPCO Open MG Framework’.
KEPCO Open MG Framework
The announcement was made known through the company’s website. In the announcement, the KEPCO President and CEO Kim Jong-gap made it known that the new microgrid will help create an ‘open energy community’ “that will bring together elements of existing microgrid technology with a blockchain implementation.”
Based on a report from KEPCO, the new microgrid will solve some of the issues encountered with the existing microgrids. The company noted that the current microgrids which are made up of small photovoltaic cells, wind turbines and energy storage devices had difficulty in supplying stable power to end users. With the KEPCO OpenMG’s the problems will be eliminated or reduced to the minimum. This is simply because the new OpenMG will be making use of a fuel cell as a power source.
Power-to-Gas (P2G) Technology
The KEPCO OpenMG’s will be making use of a power-to-gas (P2G) technology. With this technology, electricity is converted into hydrogen and stored until it is needed, at which point it is then converted back to electricity using a fuel cell. This leads to a massive improvement in the overall energy efficiency and independence of the system. Importantly the system does not emit any greenhouse gases. This makes is way better compared to existing microgrids.
According to the announcement, “KEPCO Open MG is also likely to impact positively on the economic side of things by playing a key role in the development of energy infrastructure that will underpin the so-called hydrogen economy.”
The CEO has also made some statements regarding the company’s aims and objectives with this new project.
He stated that:
“The three major trends in the future of the energy industry are decarbonization, decentralization, and digitalization. Through this project, KEPCO will show the speed of new and renewable energy generation and energy efficiency projects. We will take a step forward as an energy platform provider to drive energy conversion and digital conversion.”
