ENGIE Lab CRIGEN and the IOTA Foundation to Drive DLT Innovation in the Smart Energy Ecosystem

Oslo, Norway, July 2018 — ENGIE Lab CRIGEN and The IOTA Foundation (IOTA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate in experimentation with the IOTA Tangle in the Energy and related IoT domains.

ENGIE Lab CRIGEN is the corporate research center of the ENGIE Group, a global energy player and an expert operator in electricity, natural gas and energy services. ENGIE Lab CRIGEN, through its Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAI Lab), has been exploring blockchain and distributed ledger technologies (DLT) and is now collaborating with The IOTA Foundation to explore the IOTA Tangle, an open-source permissionless distributed ledger technology.

The IOTA Tangle is the first open-source distributed ledger specifically being built to power the future of the Internet of Things (IoT), with feeless microtransactions and data integrity for connected devices and machines. Since November 2017, IOTA has been running the Data Marketplace initiative [1] with the participation of ENGIE Lab CRIGEN (CSAI Lab) and several industrial and IT companies.

After running the Data marketplace proof of concept and experimenting internally with the IOTA Tangle, ENGIE Lab CRIGEN (CSAI Lab) explored further IOTA use cases and triggered open innovation initiatives together with other players within IOTA’s ecosystem. The ENGIE Lab CRIGEN research teams (CSAI Lab, Nanotech, Sensor & Wireless Lab, …) and IOTA will explore and test the possible use of IOTA in improving ENGIE’s business processes / products- and services applicable to Energy and adjacent areas such as smart cities, smart buildings and mobility. This will be done through joint Proofs of Concept and participation in collaborative IOTA initiatives.

Philippe Calvez, ENGIE Lab CRIGEN , Research Lab Manager, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAI Lab), said: “To continue a fruitful collaboration with IOTA, we wanted to strengthen our links with The IOTA Foundation. Many works and Proofs of Concept have already been realized in the Lab and we would like to participate in larger projects in France and abroad, in order to concretize and extend the use of innovative DLT technologies like that offered by IOTA in different business activities of ENGIE.”

Wilfried Pimenta de Miranda, Head of Business Development at the IOTA Foundation said: “The IOTA Foundation is excited to team up with ENGIE Lab to further accelerate the technology development and prototyping cycle through concrete pilots and international collaboration within the Power and Utilities industry. The IOTA team very much looks forward to scaling this cooperation. ENGIE Lab’s broad expertise and proactiveness in investigating new digital technologies and smart energy business models are real assets to our ecosystem.”

About ENGIE Lab CRIGEN

ENGIE Lab CRIGEN is the Group corporate center for R&D and high-level expertise dedicated to new energy sources (hydrogen, biogas and LNG), new energy uses in cities, buildings and the industry of tomorrow, and emerging technologies (computer sciences and AI, robots and drones, nanotechnologies and sensors).

ENGIE Lab CRIGEN conducts operational R&D projects and develops pilots on behalf of the New Corp, Métiers and Key Programs, Business Units (BUs) and external customers, with the goal of mastering tomorrow’s technologies, bringing them to maturity, and preparing for the energy transition. Its activities are also strongly focused on the implementation of innovative offers and solutions to improve the BU’s operational performance and to build new revenue streams.

ENGIE Lab CRIGEN is located at La Plaine Saint-Denis close to Paris and has 200 employees. www.engie.com, https://www.engie.com/en/innovation-energy-transition/research-laboratories/lab-crigen/

About the IOTA Foundation

IOTA is a not-for-profit foundation incorporated and registered in Germany. The IOTA Foundation’s mission is to support the development and standardization of new distributed ledger technologies (DLT), including the IOTA Tangle. The IOTA Tangle is an innovative type of DLT specifically designed for the Internet of Things (IoT) environment. It is an open-source protocol facilitating novel Machine-to-Machine (M2M) interactions, including secure data transfer, feeless real-time micropayments, and the collection and dissemination of sensor-based and other types of data.www.iota.org

[1]http://data.iota.org