FlexiDAO says its software traces electricity and carbon footprint through the entire supply chain daily, providing customer transparency
Carbon accounting startup FlexiDAO has had investment from Google, Microsoft, and others for a platform that traces the carbon content of a company’s energy to help them entirely shift to renewables. The FlexiDAO service allows companies to switch to certifiable 24×7 carbon-free energy by tracking the carbon emissions of energy sources they use. Both Microsoft and Google are already customers of the service. Today, a group of investors including Google, Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, SET Ventures, and EIT InnoEnergy has put forward $6.5 million to grow the company’s platform.
FlexiDAO says its software traces electricity and carbon footprint through the entire supply chain daily, providing customer transparency. The investment will help FlexiDAO scale its platform up across the US and Europe. Google and Microsoft are already users of the system, having promised to use 100 per cent carbon-free electricity by 2030.
“As Google and others move towards 24/7 carbon-free energy, we need new capabilities that enable us to track with credibility how the carbon-free electricity produced matches what is consumed. We are very excited by the value that the partnership with FlexiDAO will unlock for Google and for the energy transition,” said Maud Texier, Global Head of Clean Energy Development, Google.
Brandon Middaugh, Director, Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, said “Last year, Microsoft announced its 100/100/0 vision and commitment to have 100 per cent of its electricity consumption, 100 per cent of the time, matched by zero-carbon sources by 2030. We know that to achieve this goal, we will need innovative solutions like FlexiDAO that will help reliably track and verify carbon-free energy consumption. Through Microsoft’s Netherlands data centre pilot of FlexiDAO’s granular energy certification and this new investment, we are excited to work with FlexiDAO to advance our zero-carbon vision and to catalyse grid decarbonisation.”
FlexiDAO uses blockchain to certify and trace electricity from production to consumption to enable credible and verifiable claims on its carbon footprint every hour of the day.
Questions have long been raised about the possibility of blockchain’s energy efficiency – given that it distributes trust by requiring all participants to duplicate work.
Flexidao’s application runs on a validation protocol called Energy Web Chain. This was specially created for the energy industry and is extremely efficient. It does not require mining or other compute-intensive activities. Hence, Flexidao’s application saves much more energy than it uses.
