Italian green energy company Enel Group has entered the tokenization market to launch fractional ownership of solar panels on the Algorand blockchain.
The tokenised product was developed as a part of a collaboration between Enel Group and cryptocurrency wallet provider Conio, a January 21 post from the Algorand Foundation said.
Tokenization is the process of representing ownership rights of tangible and intangible assets as digital tokens recorded on a blockchain.
It involves the fractionalisation of assets, allowing multiple parties to own smaller portions of an asset or access markets that traditionally require significant investment.
As such, tokenization also enhances the transparency, accessibility, and liquidity of traditionally illiquid markets, such as real estate, renewable energy projects, and other high-value assets.
Enel’s new product will allow Italians to own fractions of the energy giant’s solar farms.
They can then use the power generated from the panels to offset residential electricity bills.
Solar panels acquired via the new platform would be managed on-site by Enel Group, ensuring optimal energy production and maintenance.
Fractional owners would not need to handle any operational responsibilities, as Enel will oversee the entire process and adjust energy production to offset their electricity usage directly.
Staci Warden, the CEO of the Algorand Foundation, praised the new product as a “clever” concept, especially because it allows individuals to offset energy usage irrespective of their physical location. She added:
You can live in a high-rise and offset with partial ownership of a solar panel in a field someplace else.
The growth of RWA
Enel’s new product is one of the many use cases that have emerged across the tokenization market, which is valued at roughly $15 billion as of January 21.
Over the past few years, tokenization has been increasingly applied to diverse sectors, with prominent projects like Ondo, Mantra and XDC network leading the charge.
Last month, the world’s first Uranium trading marketplace was launched on Etherlink, a layer 2 network built on the Tezos blockchain.
Dubbed Uranium.io, the platform would let anyone trade Uranium by acquiring tokens representing physical U3O8, which is managed by a regulated depository.
During the same month, layer 1 network Injective and cloud computing infrastructure platform Aethir partnered to democratise the market for GPU resources.
Together, they unveiled a pioneering tokenised GPU marketplace that would make it easy for anyone to trade or procure computational resources to power operations such as AI development.
Beyond blockchain native firms, several traditional players have also explored the tokenization market.
For instance, fintech giant Visa launched its Tokenised Asset Platform in September 2024 to issue fiat-backed tokens representing real-world assets.
Financial services company State Street was also exploring tokenised bond and money markets, according to its chief product officer Donna Milrod’s comments to the media.
The post Italy’s Enel Group uses Algorand to tokenize solar panel ownership appeared first on Invezz
