An Ameren Energy utility subsidiary will be working with a Canadian firm to test a transactive 

energy marketplace and evaluate the use of a blockchain ledger system. 

The  subsidiary  --  Ameren  Illinois,  based  in  Collinsville -- will be working with Opus One 

Solutions, a Toronto-based software engineering company, the company said in statement 

Thursday. 

"Transactive energy markets will ensure that distributed energy resources are compensated 

appropriately for the services that they provide," said Ron Pate, Ameren Illinois' senior vice 

president of Operations and Technical Services. 

The main objective of microgrids is self-supply, with minimal or no reliance on the distribution 

grid. Yet, according to Opus One Solutions, there are economic opportunities for microgrids

 to  use  transactive  techniques  strategically  to  their  economic  advantage  while  helping 

operational reliability. 

Identifying the value local distributed energy resources can provide to its distribution system 

and its customers "helps inform how and where customers should invest in clean renewable 

power," Pate said. 

A  transactive  energy  market  platform,  which  runs  on  a  software  environment,  allows 

consumers of all sizes to join traditional providers in production, buying and selling electricity. 

The  platform  will  be  operational,  with  testing  to begin this year, with blockchain, a shared 

digitized  ledger  to  be  used  in  the  test  to  account  for  the  buying  and  selling  of power, 

according to Marcelyn Love, an Ameren spokeswoman. 

TESTING IN CHAMPAIGN, ILLINOIS 

Ameren Illinois, which delivers power to 1.2 million electric customers in central and southern 

Illinois, said its TEM will  be  at  its  Technology  Applications Center in Champaign, Illinois, at 

what  it  calls  "one  of  the  only  utility-scale microgrids in the nation capable of serving live 

(paying) customer loads on an actual utility distribution feeder."