Blockchain technology will enable the energy market to become significantly more efficient and effective.

That’s according to Stephen Church, Energy Market Leader at EY, who spoke to ELN at our Energy Live Future conference today in Leicester.

Discussing the emerging disruptive technology, Mr Church said it has the potential to transform corporate reporting and finance systems.

During the talk he suggested it could trigger a shift to a much simpler energy market, with suppliers and buyers directly interacting, rather than through a centralised system with lots of different players, which another EY expert referred to as having a structure like “spaghetti”.

They added this would be likely to cut costs through reducing the amount of bureaucracy and middlemen involved.

The speakers also emphasised the transparency of the technology, which would allow users to check real time prices easily and decide on a transaction that suits their requirements.

Mr Church told ELN: “Blockchain could fundamentally support how we use energy. Consumers can use blockchain technology to trade between each other – they can start to look at adopting renewable sources.

“You and I could trade amongst each other if we’ve got excess energy and rather than handing each other cash, we could trade on blockchain.”