Potential Impact of Blockchain Solutions on Energy Markets

Blockchain-based software solutions have been proposed and analyzed for several applications in the field of energy markets. They are often expected to cause “disruptive” changes to the energy industry, implicating they might totally replace current market structures and render today's energy system obsolete. In order to evaluate the actual potential, several specific use cases from different fields are examined here. The potential impact is estimated based on the market value of the respective market segment, which allows assessing the prospective effect. The analyses show that some use cases do have potential to improve current processes and thus, to change the market setting, but these changes are expected to be relatively small. Therefore, blockchain technology is not expected to be disruptive regarding the energy industry, but to complement the structures and processes which are already in place.