US Government Backs DLT-Based Energy Grid With $1 Million Grant

The U.S. Department of Energy has announced it will award a grant of nearly $1 million to a blockchain startup in an effort to advance the development of a decentralized energy grid infrastructure.

The Colorado-based Grid7 is among the 95 grant recipients announced by the DoE on Monday, who won the agency's second phase Small Business Innovation Research program, which will cover a period of two years.

According to the DoE, Grid7 will be awarded with $999,363, which is part of the total $95 million that the DoE will grant to small businesses in 26 U.S. states, in a bid to advance the country's energy sector using nascent technologies.

Based on data from the SBIR program, Grid7, with a three-man team, already received a grant of around $150,000 in 2017 through the program's first phase competition.

The DoE explained startups that "Demonstrated technical feasibility for innovations during their Phase I grants competed for funding for prototype or processes development during Phase II.".

According to Grid7's website, the project aims to develop a decentralized solar power system that can connect energy data from homes, buildings and electric grids in a distributed manner.

The goal is to ensure a safe power plant control against cyber attacks, the DoE added.

As previously reported by CoinDesk, the Colorado Senate introduced a bill in January to push for blockchain use in replacing the state's existing data collection and maintenance process for higher level of data security.

Public data shows that the bill was subsequently approved by the state's senate in May and later took effect with the governor's final signature.

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