Senior Consultant Dr. Will Taylor participated in the NSW Annual Electric Energy Conference 2018 on adapting to the major changes reshaping the electric energy industry. Dr. Taylor presented on “Blockchains and Power Markets: Do We Still Need Institutional Intermediaries?” He explained whether we still need intermediaries in power markets with the emergence of distributed ledger technologies or “blockchains”.

To summarize his presentation, he concluded with: “In the power sector, market intermediaries often provide additional services that are critical to the functioning of the power system. It is unlikely that blockchains will be able to replace these functions, however they could help streamline bilateral or “over-the-counter” trading by enabling wholesale market participants to execute and reconcile trades directly with one another via shared ledgers”.