Day 2 of the Energy Web Dive 2024 continued to focus on innovative collaborations and advanced digital solutions within the energy sector. Katy Lohmann, Energy Web's Commercial Director for Enterprises, introduced the "Energy Web Circles" initiative, emphasizing the Universal Energy ID and Credentials Ecosystem designed to facilitate secure and interoperable energy transactions globally. Additionally, Ian Kelly presented an insightful update on the Digital Spine project, developed in collaboration with Australia's AEMO, showcasing how decentralized technologies are effectively managing the growing complexities of distributed energy resources. Both sessions highlighted Energy Web’s commitment to enabling energy decentralization, strengthening grid resilience, and advancing global sustainability. Here are the key takeaways from Day 2.
SESSION 1
Speaker: Katy Lohmann
Title: Commercial Director for Enterprises at Energy Web
Topic: Energy Web Circles
Session Summary:
Katy Lohmann introduced the Energy Web Circles initiative designed to encourage cross-industry collaboration and drive meaningful progress in energy transition through digital technology. Emphasizing market challenges faced by enterprises, the Circles foster collaboration, knowledge sharing, and development of actionable strategies involving technology providers, regulators, and enterprises.
One of the highlighted Circles focuses specifically on developing a Universal Energy ID and Credentials Ecosystem. This ecosystem addresses increasing decentralization and digitalization within the energy sector, aiming to create secure and verifiable identities to facilitate seamless, trusted transactions. Key use cases include:
-
Unique identification and ownership of energy assets using decentralized identifiers (DIDs) and verifiable credentials (VCs).
-
Standardized, secure data exchange enabling data sovereignty and interoperability for retail, wholesale, and grid applications.
-
Automated and reliable billing systems integrated with digital wallets, enhancing trust and accuracy in energy transactions.
The technology underpinning this initiative prioritizes open-source frameworks, standardization, interoperability, and compliance with industry standards. A transparent governance model ensures collective decision-making, decentralized trust, and continuous improvement, supported by a roadmap leading from prioritization of use cases to pilot demonstrations by May 2025.
Prominent stakeholders collaborating on this initiative include Vodafone, Impactility, Infineon, Elia Group, Shell, and Energy Web, each contributing strategic direction, compliance alignment, and innovation leadership to ensure successful adoption and implementation.
You can watch the full event here: YouTube
SESSION 2
Speaker: Ian Kelly
Title: Director of Global Delivery at Energy Web
Topic: Energy Web with Digital Spine and AEMO
Session Overview:
Ian Kelly provided an update on the collaboration between Energy Web and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) on the Digital Spine project, an innovative decentralized energy management platform.
Context & Challenges:
Australia's rapid adoption of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), including rooftop solar, residential batteries, and electric vehicles, presents substantial challenges for energy grid management. By 2032, half of Australian homes will have solar installations, and storage capacities from batteries and EVs are expected to double the current coal generation capacity to around 30 GW. This shift creates complexities such as real-time balancing of supply and demand, managing frequency control, and avoiding congestion, making centralized control systems insufficient.
Solution - Digital Spine:
To address these issues, Energy Web and AEMO developed the Digital Spine—a decentralized platform leveraging Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and Web3 technologies to facilitate efficient, secure, and scalable data exchange among various stakeholders, including distribution network service providers (DNSPs), aggregators, market operators, and consumers.
Key Objectives:
-
Secure Data Exchange: Employ decentralized identifiers (DIDs) and self-sovereign identity (SSI) technologies to give participants control over their data and ensure privacy.
-
Scalability and Automation: Enable standardized, real-time messaging and data integration patterns to manage millions of DER assets.
-
System Security: Leverage decentralized, cryptographically-secured infrastructure to enhance resilience and avoid single points of failure.
Technology & Architecture:
-
Self-Sovereign Identities (SSI): Transition from traditional siloed identity management (centralized username/password databases) to decentralized cryptographic key-pair management, allowing participants control over identities and roles through verifiable credentials stored on distributed ledgers.
-
Decentralized Data Hub (DDHub): Acts as a central message bus supporting diverse messaging patterns such as broadcast, multicast, and unicast, enabling secure and efficient data communication across the network. It supports large data exchanges, schema agnostic exchanges, and easy integration options.
-
Client Containers: Provide features such as key-pair generation, data encryption, message publishing/subscribing, health checks, and secure authentication (mTLS), ensuring a robust interface for participants to interact with the DDHub.
Project Deployment - TEDD:
-
Launched in April 2024 as part of AEMO's broader initiatives (EDGE and Symphony), Project TEDD currently involves approximately 10 market participants.
-
TEDD focuses on managing grid stability through Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS).
-
AEMO anticipates more than 30 participants by 2025.
Use Cases Demonstrated by Project TEDD:
-
Emergency Solar Management (ESM): Managing emergency solar generation data for reliable grid operation.
-
Non Co-Optimized Essential System Services (NCESS): Providing essential grid services and verifying transactions and activations.
-
Supplementary Reserve Capacity (SRC): Managing reserve capacity requirements and settlements efficiently.
Outlook:
The Digital Spine project represents a significant advancement toward a decentralized, resilient, and sustainable energy ecosystem. By harnessing decentralized technologies, Energy Web and AEMO aim to modernize grid operations, ensuring stable, secure, and efficient integration of renewable and distributed energy resources.
You can watch the full event here: YouTube
Follow us on our Socials
