HOLONI, a consortium consisting of the Norwegian Alphaventuri and the Danisn Energinet entered AI4CIties Phase 2 with a vision to provide smart city ecosystems an intelligent and decentralised peer-to-peer energy marketplace platform enabling the secure and traceable real time exchange and trading of green energy between peer participants within a given virtual cluster.

Its solution reduces CO2 emissions in the cities by providing a city solar surplus prediction tool coupled with a digital marketplace enabling local prosumers and offtakers to trade green-verified energy. Furthermore, the solution provides an innovative business model anticipating upcoming changes in energy regulations and practices including RECs, localised peer to peer energy trading and granular certificate of origin.

From a more technological perspective, the solution leverages AI beyond the prediction of solar production and predicts how much solar surplus can be generated from positive energy buildings. It also powers up a digital exchange by using IOTA, the next generation of green, fast, feeless and scalable blockchain, currently a candidate to equip European public smart service infrastructure. Energinet’s ORIGIN, now called Energy Track & Trace, is integrated to verify the origin of energy,
hour by hour, anticipating the shift towards more granular certificates of origin.

Considering HOLONI is a new venture, it has put a lot of focus on business modelling. The good news is that origin verification has a great potential, even though resistance from legacy business models has been slowing down progress. Some upcoming regulatory changes in the energy sector could turn this around, as well as a renewed sustainable finance taxonomy.