# Trading renewable energy certificates digitally

> The American Public Power Association partnered with Energy Blocks to deploy a blockchain platform for tracking and trading renewable energy certificates. The shared ledger records the complete lifecycle of each certificate from power generation to final retirement without intermediaries. Public utilities across the United States benefit from streamlined compliance processes and verified proofs of green energy origin.

**Sector:** Tertiary sector · **Industry:** Renewable energy · **Organisation:** American Public Power Association (APPA), Energy Blocks · **Maturity level:** Pilot

Canonical URL: https://www.sapientblock.com/en/use-cases/american-public-power-association-erneuerbare-energien-zertifikate-digital

## Documentation status

- **Project status:** Pilot
- **Evidence:** Evidence medium
- **Editorial review:** pending

## Description

The American Public Power Association, together with Energy Blocks, designed a DLT solution that enables municipal energy suppliers to trade green electricity certificates with trust. Until now, the recording and resale of green electricity certificates required elaborate manual register reconciliations between various involved parties. Through the shared ledger, every unit of electricity generated is documented fraud-proof, reducing administrative costs and effectively preventing abuse.

Within the cooperation between the American Public Power Association (APPA) and the technology provider Energy Blocks, a platform was created for tracing and trading Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). The technology is based on a permissioned distributed ledger that stores the lifecycle of each certificate from original electricity generation through ownership changes to final retirement. This addresses the widespread risk of double sales or non-transparent intermediary fees in conventional REC registers. The project specifically targets public and cooperative utilities in the United States, which often have fewer personnel resources in energy trading than large corporations. Through standardised transactions and transparent proofs, the REC market is intended to be made more liquid and efficient for municipal providers.

## Benefits

- More efficient market access for smaller suppliers and industrial buyers
- Direct billing without intermediaries
- Increased transparency throughout the entire lifecycle of green electricity certificates
- Complete protection against double redemption or counting
- Reduction of administrative processing and auditing costs
- Elimination of time-consuming reconciliation and booking steps
- Higher reliability of audit data

## Challenges

- Need for a critical mass of participating market players for sufficient liquidity
- Lack of uniform nationwide regulatory standards for DLT certificates in the USA
- Complexity in integrating existing metering and legacy systems
- Required development of technological understanding for DLT-based registry management

## Technology foundation

Permissioned Distributed Ledger (Energy Blocks Blockchain Platform)

## Sources

- [Companies to build blockchain-based REC trading platform](https://www.publicpower.org/periodical/article/companies-build-blockchain-based-rec-trading-platform)