Japanese utility giant Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO) is joining forces with Australian blockchain energy trading firm Power Ledger to test peer-to-peer (p2p) renewable energy trading in Japan.

The objective is to provide communities with cheaper energy systems and offer an opportunity to generating customers to monetize their renewable energy investments by selling their excess energy peer-to-peer.

Initially, the project would cover up to 10 homes in selected sites in Osaka. During the trial, KEPCO will share meter data from the participants, while Power Ledger will provide access to its trading platform, which would facilitate and monitor energy trading between project participants to increase the incentive for the development of renewable distributed energy resources (DER’s).

“The fact that KEPCO is exploring the Power Ledger platform as a solution is a massive indication that the industry has accepted that change is inevitable,” Power Ledger Managing Director and Co-founder, David Martin said. “The energy industry is traditionally conservative, and rightly so. When they implement changes consumers are relying on them to be certain it’s the right decision.”

Using the Power Ledger system, KEPCO will be able to track the generation and consumption of all trading participants. It would also allow near real-time settlement of energy trades on pre-determined terms and conditions.

“The trial will give material feedback around the technology and opportunity for adoption. We’re excited to partner with KEPCO to implement our platform in Japan and bring Power Ledger one step closer to our goal of democratizing power,” Martin added.

According to the official announcement on Medium, KEPCO intends to use the platform to support the development of Virtual Power Plants (VPP) where consumer-owned generating and storage capacity can be used to support local energy demands.

Founded in 2016, Power Ledger raised $34 million in an initial coin offering (ICO) last year. In December 2017, it entered into an agreement with Thai-Government backed renewable energy developer BCPG to bring peer-to-peer renewable energy trading to Thailand. The company is also involved in a blockchain-powered distributed energy and water systems project in the City of Fremantle which has received government funding.