DAEDALUS: Reaching the sun with solarcoins and smart solar panels

Stage: Round 4

Despite being a middle-income country, India contends with unreliable local electricity grids causing extended outages. The solution focuses on innovative business and financing models for rooftop solar panels, replacing local diesel generators, and improving access to clean energy amid declining costs and subsidies. Ongoing examination explores how blockchains and cryptocurrencies, like SolarCoins, can incentivize investors and facilitate loan repayments for secure local trading of solar power. The integration of smart card chips with solar panels, linked to distributed ledger technology, becomes a key enabler, tracking assets and preventing fraud. The University of Hertfordshire’s testbed highlights cryptocurrency, distributed ledger, and smart solar panel advantages, promoting skills exchange with DFiD-supported partners in South Asia or sub-Saharan Africa.