While the EU bitcoin ban failed to win approval by the European Parliament, the discussion regarding crypto’s energy consumption remains a hotly debated topic.
In response to the consumption critics, renewable energy experts suggest that crypto can either create demand for more renewable energy sources, or use blockchain technology itself to interact with power grids.
According to Doug Miller, Deputy Director of the Clean Energy Buyers Association (CEBA) and co-founder of Zero Labs, these two approaches could indeed revolutionize the entire cryptocurrency industry. He suggested bitcoin miners, or anyone who holds bitcoin, be a participant in the clean energy markets. At the same time, crypto exchanges could be in charge of providing new technologies for these new markets. The value of bitcoin will not be affected, and it is beneficial to the society as a whole, Miller claimed.
RECS as the new commitment to clean energy
Miller is a strong advocate of the renewable energy certificates (RECs), which are used to confirm that a company has pledged to obtain power from solar, wind or hydro facilities. The power grid keeps track of how much energy comes from these facilities, and the company can earn additional revenue from these RECs on top of the electricity sale.
According to Miller, if crypto miners, exchanges, investors and networks buy clean energy based on their estimated energy use and make a public annoucement of their commitment, this would significantly increase demand in this market, as well as show their leadership as an industry.
The crypto industry could also utilize its blockchain technology to digitize and streamline clean energy markets, either by assigning digital identities to clean energy facilities, or creating digital representations of the RECs.
Filecoin Green Initiative’s success story
As an attempt to clean up cryptocurrency’s dirty image, multiple organisations have joined force to show their commitment to renewable energy. Last year, Energy Web, a blockchain-based system aimed at decarbonizing power grids, found the Crypto Climate Accord that consists of more than 200 crypto firms as well as NGOs and technology providers.
The decentralized file storage blockchain Filecoin also launched Filecoin Green project with a dashboard for the system’s storage providers to manage their RECs. In addition, they provided a $38 million grant last month to build more solar power facilities, encouraging storage providers to opt for greener energy via a reputation system.
Filecoin’s Green Project is indeed receiving a lot of positive responses. Dcent, one of its storage providers, built a data center just north of Amsterdam in the Netherlands dedicated to Filecoin. Meanwhile, Hiddle Hoogland, a computer hardware specialist at Dcent B.V., said that along with purchasing clean power, his data center is adding its own solar panels because it owns the roof rights. All of these transactions are publicly recorded via the Filecoin dashboard. Hoogland is confident that his company will soon have a 100% full transparency regarding the amount of energy created, used as well as the efficiency of the company in general.
