Blockchain’s energy industry promise has come a step closer to reality with the launch of the first public, open-source, enterprise-gradeblockchainfor the sector. The Zug, Switzerland-based Energy Web Foundation (EWF) this week said its blockchain, EW Chain, was up and running with validator nodes hosted by 10 companies within its affiliate ecosystem, which includes utilities such as Centrica, Duke Energy and E.ON. The initial validators include the French power giant Engie, the Belgian electricity transmission system operator Elia, the distribution company Singapore Power Group, German startup OLI Technology and FlexiDAO of Spain, which works with green energy certificates. Jesse Morris, EWF’s chief commercial officer, said EW Chain’s launch represented an unprecedented level of open-source collaboration in the global energy industry.

 “We now have corporates from different markets across the world, that are not part of some standard-setting effort, hosting a part of an IT solution that is fully open source, decentralized, requires collaboration, and is public,” he said. This level of collaboration meant the energy sector was leading blockchain development, he said. “If you look at blockchain projects in other industries, you don’t have corporates participating in public networks,” he said. “The energy sector is leading the rest of the world.” EWF is also preparing to migrate 17 decentralized applications, or dApps, from test networks onto the EW Chain in the coming weeks. Morris said the dApps were mostly  […]