Ormera - smart energy billing via blockchain

Ormera stands for: oracle, metrics, ratio. Or more loosely translated: meter to cash. The new start-up Ormera – until recently an innovation case at PostFinance – offers customers a direct billing portal for their energy consumption that uses blockchain technology.

What was previously a vague idea in the mind of Matthias Egli is now the core business of a new start-up, Ormera AG, which links electricity meters directly to consumers’ accounts. The entire process from meter reading and tariff calculation to account billing is performed automatically via a blockchain.

A radical digital solution

Ormera is radically simplifying energy management especially in terms of ZEV, a system for sharing self-produced energy within buildings. If the owners of a photovoltaic installation, for instance, link up with several end consumers, this production system can be directly linked to all the consumers’ accounts. This enables the operator to manage administration of the system by all parties in a single cockpit. The consumers, too, retain an overview of all account billing and their power consumption on the same platform – and can optimize as needed. Ormera is the ideal meter-to-cash solution for energy and real estate service providers.

How Ormera came about

Matthias Egli first went to his colleagues at Energie Wasser Bern (ewb) with an idea: Blockchain for Utility (B4U). They jointly outlined the specifics of the idea in some preliminary workshops and set up various scenarios: Which pain points are faced by customers? How could they be resolved? The viability of the core idea was then confirmed and several committee decisions were made. The project team then acquired the first major partners and larger customers in the final six months. And now, almost two years later, the biggest highlight so far has been the founding of the start-up Ormera by PostFinance and Energie Wasser Bern!

Success through open innovation

The opening up of the innovation process to those outside PostFinance has once again proven its worth to the project. The collaborative efforts were crucial: the core team with Thomas Goetz (blockchain expert at PostFinance) and two of Matthias Egli’s colleagues from ewb complemented each other perfectly and they developed the product very closely in line with real customer needs. The team brought experts on board at just the right time to better make use of the know-how of both companies.

Ormera has huge potential for our digital future. Matthias Egli will present how Ormera can be upscaled and what exciting cases are already underway at Connecta 2019.