AURORA is a future-gazing design for decentralized marketplace for trading energy assets between industries & enterprises on a national level. It is based on blockchain Smart Contracts so that it remains autonomous & secure, without requiring central ownership, and can handle Self-Sovereign Identity & multiple-level cryptography to handle user data in a privacy-preserving, data-portable way. At the same time, the “asset agnosticism” afforded by blockchain tech allows AURORA to be modular (able to handle multiple types of energy assets, in distinct modules of the same system architecture & properties) while keeping immutable records of transactions on it – as required for openness & conformity to European Legislation - with records built to be preserve privacy by design. Transparency in AURORA is also all-encompassing, limited only by the barriers of the blockchain network you deploy it on (be it public/permissionless, like Ethereum, or private/permissioned, like solutions built on Hyperledger Fabric).

Data portability and data ownership need not only concern individual citizens, but European Businesses as well - especially so in the arena of the Digital Energy Markets where the ecosystem is highly competitive, but also needs to remain transparent & standardized in order to follow European Regulations (MIFID II by ESMA, EMIR etc).

AURORA proposes a new, open way for EU industries to deal in Energy Assets. Through a Decentralized Finance (DeFi) approach to Energy, we are able to construct a modular and autonomous agora where enterprise users can deal with each other confidently, and where strong, auditable records of transactions are kept and evaluated through a-priori private methods. AURORA, as a blockchain system, belongs to no-one individually, but is built to serve the community and the Network of Users itself. This digital-first approach also affords us the extra interoperability of AURORA’s data being able to be used by separate digital systems (blockchain, conventional or hybrid ones). Part of our intended work, as an environmental Social Cooperative, is to utilize energy trading data in AURORA to automatically extrapolate CO2 records and certificates for participating Industries, as per European Environmental Legislation (as an extra functionality on top of AURORA’s main system).

In all, AURORA aims to be the Open Standard for an innovative, scaleable and autonomous Energy Asset Market used in European Member States, without central ownership and intermediaries, and with the digital data produced during its operation being as secure and interoperable (even cross-border) as possible.

AURORA's first feasibility report is set to be completed within Q1 2023, in cooperation with DESFA S.A. & the Aristotle University, Greece.