Something unusual is happening down on President Street in Brooklyn. Solar panels have been set up, and attached to a bank of computers. These computers monitor how much energy is generated, and how much is used, but they also give residents the ability to decide what happens to their own power. They can choose to sell every bit of excess energy to maximize their own profits, or they choose to donate power they don’t need, sending it to a low-income portion of the power grid. This experiment, using energy in a block chain setup, has major implications according to New Scientist.

A Different Kind of Clean Energy Revolution?

Green energy is a booming industry, and with governments working hand-in-hand with businesses, every year sees more solar, wind, and other forms of renewable energy replacing old-fashioned fossil fuels. But the setup for homeowners has always been the same. You can set up solar panels that power your home, or which feed the grid, but you always have to go through your local utility. With this new block chain setup, that may not be the case in the future.

The idea is that people who produce power get to decide how it’s used, creating a microgrid that uses all the local energy. Given that these grids are considered more secure, and that they aren’t really affected by problems at the utility headquarters, there are a lot of people pushing for wider adoption. Lower overhead, fewer billing costs, and homeowners get to decide what to do with their own clean energy.