Smart Contract for Alpiq

ETH juniors and Alpiq drew up a Smart Contract for international electricity trading based on blockchain development technology. This technology helps to reduce internal and external transaction costs and ensures at the same time secure and inexpensive transactions. On completion of the project with Switzerland's leading electricity producer and energy service provider Alpiq, ETH juniors are taking stock.

Project goal achieved

The ETH juniors’ spirit of innovation and tremendous support were key to achieving the project objective. The pilot project enabled Alpiq to sign the first Smart Contract for electricity transaction in Eastern Europe. The new contract replaces communication by e-mail and telephone as well as the use of documents and paper currencies. 

Stimulating cooperation between research and industry

This project illustrates the potential of co-operations with young researchers: "The outstanding technical know-how and the application-oriented way in which ETH juniors work have contributed significantly to the success of the project. We appreciate the innovative spirit of the team and their willingness to openly discuss various options," says Gergely Gonda, pilot project manager at Alpiq. For ETH juniors, this positive review is very satisfying: "We work with many different companies of various industries and feel honoured to receive such excellent feedback from an internationally operating Swiss energy group," says Patricia Künzle, Project Manager at ETH juniors.

What are Smart Contracts?

The execution of a traditional contract requires human validation to check the terms and conditions and decide on the next steps according to the written agreement.

Smart contracts are translations of an agreement, including terms and conditions, into a computational code. From its initialization, a smart contract is automatically executed and does not rely on a third party.

This news was first published by ETH Zurich.