A total $3.5 million will be spent by the South Korean government to set up a blockchain-enabled virtual power plant (VPP) in South Korean city, Busan.
According to local South Korean newspaper Yonhap, the highly populated South Korean city of Busan, second only to the country’s capital city (also the largest metropolis of South Korea), Seoul, made an announcement saying that its administration had made a move to fund an innovative energy industry in the city by establishing a virtual power plant (VPP) based on a citizens-shared blockchain.
It has also been reported that the project will be represented at Korea Electric Power Corporation, KEPCO’s hosted national competition next year. The Korea Electric Power Corporation, KEPCO is the largest electric utility in the South Korean nation.
What’s a Virtual Power Plant?
For readers new to the term, a virtual power plant is described to be a cloud-based circulated power plant that assimilates the idle capabilities of several energy resources to facilitate the optimization of power generation. The virtual power plant (VPP) project is also set to cumulate other sources of power such as Busan-area factories and public facilities of the energy storage system (ESS), as well as solar power plants.
The virtual power plant (VPP) project was proposed by the 2nd most populous South Korean city in conjunction with Pusan National University (PNU), Busan City Gas, energy management firm Nuri Telecom, and real estate firm Korea Industrial Complex Corporation.
A particular local crypto-news agency reported that the city of Busan had been actively involved in the adequate expansion and promotion of the blockchain technology. Busan’s Minister of economic affairs, Yoo Jae-soo, who previously served as director general for financial policy at the Financial Services Commission (FSC) was reported to have converged an assembly for discussions on setting aside a particular area in the city for the development of the blockchain technology and the digital currency industry earlier in the year.
Previous Visions for a Blockchain Centre in Busan
Also, during the middle of the year, a South Korean governmental agency — the Industry-SW ICT Convergence Association (WICA) stated that it was intending to create a centre for the blockchain in Busan after the order of Zug, the city touted as Switzerland’s crypto valley. The agency further added that if its plan came to fruition, the centre for the blockchain modelled after Zug’s crypto valley would be at Haeundae, a prosperous beachfront(in terms of standard of living) located in Eastern Busan and usually visited by tourists.
The second biggest South Korean commercial bank, Shinhan Bank, earlier today, started up a blockchain-based initiative in the internal processes of the traditional financial institution so the errors associated with the inevitable part of being human could be avoided when it comes to keeping records.