Verde Blocks to Bring Businesses the First End-to-End, DLT-Enabled Platform for Purchasing Renewable Energy

11/4/22 - Wyomissing, Pennsylvania - As the electric and finance industries evolve quickly, our electric grid is moving away from large, centralized fossil fuel power plants toward smaller, decentralized energy generation from renewable power sources, like solar and wind. This makes it harder for renewable energy buyers and sellers to find each other. It also creates a growing challenge as many large companies setting ambitious climate and energy goals look for renewable power options that don’t require a 15–20-year commitment while a project is being built.

The Hedera public distributed ledger provides a platform for carrying out and recording transactions fairly and efficiently, as well as tracking ownership as assets change hands before settlement. Making it the ideal platform to assist in the evolution of the energy market, Hedera goes beyond the typical blockchain-based paradigm of security, trustlessness, and decentralization by also providing fairness (of ordering, timestamps, and access), Verde Blocks will leverage Hedera’s distributed ledger technology (DLT) to enable, for the first time, the purchase of transparent, trustless, public, verifiable, renewable power.  

In simple terms, this means a buyer can have full confidence in their energy purchase and consumption. By utilizing key features of blockchain/DLT technology, including stateful, smart contracts with escrow and oracles, Verde Blocks can automatically hold and disperse payments upon energy delivery confirmation. Verde Blocks’ automation of renewable power purchases provides a platform that participants can trust and rely upon while scalably accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy. 

“With more than 25 years of experience of working with large institutions and corporations to purchase power directly from generators and wholesale marketers, my goal is to make it easier for businesses to buy blocks of competitive, renewable energy, '' says Verde Blocks CEO, R. Scott Helm. "As the climate crisis intensifies, our relationship with The HBAR Foundation is critical to scaling our efforts to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by advancing the clean energy transition.”

Verde Blocks is a wholesale energy procurement platform that buyers can use to request power bundled with Renewable Energy Credits (RECs), and wholesale electric sellers can use to respond to bids where payment is assured upon delivery. Another key advantage of Verde Blocks is its embedded finance component, which provides the ability to confirm — with the Independent System Operator (ISO) — that the agreed-upon generation has been scheduled into the system, then transfer the appropriate funds from the buyer to the seller. Opening the door for many more organizations to enter the wholesale renewable electricity market, this nimble, flexible approach provides buyers a platform to competitively request wholesale blocks of renewable power down to a minimum size of 1 MW (1000 KW) for one month.

The platform not only provides large retail electric buyers a cost-efficient, low-risk approach to purchasing competitive, renewable power without entering into extended commitments, it also helps buyers and sellers find one another. Verde Blocks’ DLT-enabled technology provides large retail electric buyers direct access to sustainable power generators, utilizing smart contracts to automate many of the functions.

“Verde Blocks is a user-friendly platform for large electric buyers to competitively source renewable power in the market. Their DLT-enabled platform makes it easier for companies to reach their ambitious climate goals by replacing fossil fuels with clean energy,” said Wes Geisenberger, VP of Sustainability & ESG for The HBAR Foundation. “With their launch on Hedera, it’s never been easier for large retail electric buyers and renewable energy generators to find each other.”

The HBAR Foundation’s Sustainable Impact Fund is focused on driving standardization in sustainability markets by creating a repeatable format for high-quality tokenized credits that maintain an auditable link to project data through trading and retirement of tokenized credits. Verde Blocks, with the support of The HBAR Foundation, will continue to focus on improving its platform for businesses to buy blocks of renewable energy — making the process easier to obtain competitive, renewable power through smart contracts. 

To learn more about how you can benefit from Verde Blocks, visit https://www.americanpowernet.com/verde-blocks/.