A blockchain project in Australia is to receive more than $8 million (£4.6m) of funding to integrate a range of energy and water systems.

The City of Freemantle will receive $2.6 million (£1.5m) from the government and $5.7 million (£3.3m) through project partners.

It will trial how cities can use blockchain technology and data analytics to get water and energy facilities working together and increasing efficiency.

The only other way to do this would be to knock existing structures down and build them all in one location.

The project will connect old equipment with highly resilient, low carbon and low cost systems, such as solar panels, large-scale batteries, an electric vehicle (EV) charging station and precinct water treatment technologies.

Professor Greg Morrison of Curtin University said: “We will develop a smart metering, battery storage and blockchain trading system to allow energy and water efficiencies between critical dispersed infrastructures that would otherwise have required physical co-location.”

The project will span over two years and is due to begin within the next two months.