Electric Vehicle Charging With Fractional Renewable Energy Certificates Using Blockchain Technology

Renewable Energy certificates (RECs), as Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) assets, are growing in value globally, based on the need to solve climate challenges. RECs are also proven viable market-friendly instruments, with carbon markets exponentially growing for trading them since they facilitate measuring and tracking energy from clean renewable sources. However, RECS are error prone due to minimal traceability or certification, double counting as well as green washing, and therefore require worldwide ledgers for its proper management. This article explored RECs tokenisation using blockchain technology to solve its challenges and greenify smaller decentralised physical assets by matching consumption with renewable energy production. A proof-of-concept (POC) was developed around EV charging with three RECs use cases tested in a microgrid demonstrator in Singapore. The prioritized use cases were used to depict scenarios for how individuals and businesses with or without renewable energy assets can acquire RECs to achieve their decarbonisation goals.