innogy Partners with Cryptowerk to Develop Blockchain-Powered Solutions for the Energy Market

Cryptowerk, the leader in blockchain-enabled digital trust solutions for the enterprise, announced today a partnership with innogy, Germany’s leading renewable energy company. The partnership includes a strategic investment by innogy New Ventures LLC in Cryptowerk, with the goal of developing new blockchain-powered applications for the distributed energy market.

“We are proud to partner with innogy to bring the benefits of blockchain’s distributed ledger technology to the energy industry,” said Dirk Kanngiesser, CEO of Cryptowerk. “innogy is a proven international leader in renewable energy innovation. By combining Cryptowerk’s enterprise Digital Trust solutions with innogy’s energy leadership, we will create powerful applications that meet the demands of the new, distributed energy economy.”

The utility industry is facing growing and increasingly distributed demand from both energy producers and consumers, along with new regulatory requirements. The changes, from renewable energy resources to peer-to-peer transactions and “prosumers”—consumers who both buy and sell energy—are transforming the traditional centralized utility grid into a highly distributed “Internet of Energy.”

innogy believes that blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies, with their ability to verify the authenticity of transactions without a central authority, will be key enablers of this new, distributed energy economy. When the company began researching blockchain-focused solution providers, Cryptowerk emerged as the clear leader.

“Cryptowerk is the only company we found that provides an enterprise-grade blockchain solution that is interoperable, portable and highly scalable,” said Florian Andreas Kolb, Managing Director at innogy New Ventures LLC, Palo Alto. “That combination makes Cryptowerk the most practical solution for today’s demanding energy applications, as well as a future-proof solution as blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies continue to evolve.”

Cryptowerk’s Digital Trust Engine is an SAP Certified software solution that makes it easy to integrate existing enterprise applications with any public or private blockchain, as well as other digital ledger technologies. The Cryptowerk API requires no system downtime, and no blockchain expertise to program the integrations, saving companies significant time and money in developing blockchain-enabled applications.

According to the two partners, potential applications of blockchain for the utility industry include:

• Blockchain-based authentication of billing and payment for energy purchases, i.e., for electric car charging stations;
• The ability to store and verify customer usage data in a blockchain (SMART meter or customer submission);
• Collect payments on the blockchain without incurring fees associated with bank transfers;
• The ability to store data from energy producing assets, such as wind and solar farms, to the blockchain.

“Cryptowerk’s deep expertise in enterprise software and cryptography make them a valuable partner as we develop these new applications and business models. We look forward to working with the Cryptowerk team to continue innogy’s leadership in energy innovation,” said Kolb.

“We could not ask for a better strategic partner in the energy industry than innogy,” said Kanngiesser. “We at Cryptowerk are excited to see what the future of this partnership holds.”