200 research outputs found

    Blockchain e fornitura di energia. Riflessioni in materia di responsabilità tra decentralizzazione e tutela dei consumatori

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    Smart grids are essential for a more sustainable and reliable energy supply system. They facilitate the integration of decentralized electricity generation and encourage prosumers production. Blockchain technology can support and streamline this process. The application of blockchain to smart grids can help coordinate distributed energy production and promises to enable peer-to-peer transactions through smart contracts. The intersection of smart grids and blockchain ledgers recalibrates the relationships within energy supply systems in favour of a decentralized energy-sharing network. Within this context, whether there is – or should be – a middleman responsible for energy supply is a core issue to investigate. While intermediaries challenge the technological – and philosophical – assumptions of blockchain systems, they also enormously ease the allocation of liability in case of dysfunctions. The main question this paper aims to address is where responsibility and liability stand in a complex system that combines the traditional energy infrastructure with an automated digital grid based on blockchain technology. Different models of blockchain and the impact they have on liability are considered. The article concludes that the energy supply system needs intermediation. Eventually, it explores the concept of «distributed liability» as a means for managing risks in highly decentralized systems

    Contratto e principio dello sviluppo sostenibile. Il caso degli Energy Performance Contracts

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    This paper is based on the analysis of the sustainable development principle as an instrument to balance environmental protection with the market imperatives. In this context, the energy performance contract (EPC) represents the example of a new regulatory private law, which leads the market regulation not only to ensure competition but also to meet social needs, as the environmental ones. This model fits within the idea of a highly competitive social market economy, according to article 3.3 of TEU. Moreover, it complies with the institutional relationships between legislative and judicial power in the field of contract law. As a result, the legislative action could design a legal framework in which the contract could achieve public interest goals, as the promotion of energy efficiency, without stretching its function
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