Australian blockchain energy trading company Power Ledger has announced that it has entered into an agreement with Thai-Government backed renewable energy developer BCPG to bring peer-to-peer renewable energy trading to Thailand.

The project will mark the first such initiative in South East Asia. BCPG President Bundit Sapianchai said that the industry is moving from a centralised generation to a distributed energy model where blockchain technology will be crucial for the distribution.

“This will help reduce the government’s investment in building large-scale power plants to meet the growing demand for electricity and at the same time offer customers and consumers a greater choice of electricity from renewable energy in the form of Peer-to-Peer energy trading. Our project covers diverse groups of participants, from housing units to malls, schools, hospitals, industrial estates, to name a few,” Sapianchai said.

According to the terms of the agreement, the companies will collaborate on the formation of a microgrid development in Bangkok which will see between 6–10 multi-storey apartment buildings trading between 1–2MW of embedded solar generation. Using the Power Ledger energy-trading platform, building managers will be able to trade renewable energy from solar panels installed on each building with autonomous financial settlement enabled via the use of a secure banking interface.

“Renewable microgrid developments allow for the efficient installation and operation of generation capacity close to consumers, we’re really proud to be working with BCPG to bring this technology to South East Asia,” Power Ledger managing director, David Martin said. “The autonomous nature of the trading platform means it’s simple and low-cost and bringing this together with on-site generating capacity means energy can be low-cost, low-carbon and resilient to the impacts of severe weather conditions.”

Power Ledger said that BCPG has already begun the task of selecting the Thai bank that will be the first to provide autonomous financial settlement for P2P energy transactions in Asia.

In October, Power Ledger raised $34 million in an initial coin offering (ICO). It is also involved in a blockchain-powered distributed energy and water systems project in the City of Fremantle which has received government funding.