Project Origin – Granular Certificates – From Theory To Practice
Event Recap: LF Energy Summit Europe 2025
TL;DR
At LF Energy Summit Europe 2025, Thomas Wisbech (Energinet) presented Project Origin, a technical framework recently onboarded by the LF Energy Technical Advisory Committee. The project provides a digital infrastructure for granular certificates, enabling hourly tracking of renewable energy consumption and production. By utilizing cryptographic tools, including Merkel proofs and Peterson commitments, the project ensures verifiable, privacy-preserving energy accounting.
Presentation Overview
Wisbech described a four-year process of moving Project Origin from a conceptual business case to operational infrastructure. As the Danish state-owned TSO, Energinet operates a decentralized energy system requiring a transition from traditional yearly Guarantees of Origin to time-and-volume-based certification. The session explored how these certificates align with 15-minute or hourly spot market intervals to support transparent green energy claims for downstream applications such as Power-to-X and corporate sustainability reporting.
Architecture and Core Components
The project addresses the “triangle of pain” (non-storable assets, high data volumes, and trust) through three primary technical elements.
The first component is the use of Merkel proofs to guarantee the uniqueness and immutability of the registry. This makes the system tamper-evident, allowing participants to verify that their specific transactions are included in published proofs without exposing the entire database.
The second component involves Peterson commitments, which are used to obfuscate certificate values. This allows a certificate to represent a specific volume of production while ensuring that sensitive private information, such as exact hourly consumption patterns, is not leaked during public verification.
The third component is a stateful certificate model. Unlike static data, these certificates undergo state transitions (issued, transferred, claimed, or expired). This architecture prevents double claiming and ensures digital copies are recognizable from the original.
Field Deployment and Collaboration
Project Origin was developed under the Apache License 2.0 through an informal network approach involving the Alexandra Institute, Mjølner Informatics, and cryptographers from Concordium.
The software was validated through several initiatives:
* Energy Track and Trace: A collaborative effort with TSOs including Elia Group and 50Hertz to test the exchange of certificate ownership across federated registries.
* Danish Pilots: Implementation with approximately 600 commercial actors who claimed green energy certificates against hourly production and consumption over a six-month period.
* Standards Compliance: The implementation was certified as EnergyTag compliant, based on the technical merits of its cryptographic documentation.
Governance and Future Work
Wisbech stated that while the technical implementation is validated, the governance of open collaborations remains a primary challenge. This led to the onboarding of Project Origin into LF Energy to utilize established governance frameworks.
Future development aims to target Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) and Community Energy Management Systems (CEMS). The goal is to establish cryptographic consistency across federated networks to enable decentralized grid balancing and automated trust models.
Watch the full presentation:
https://youtu.be/MOzRJGrU9R4?si=QSnNeMIuhhBiOnYx
FAQ
What is Project Origin?
Project Origin is a project hosted by LF Energy (currently in the onboarding process) that provides a technical framework for granular energy certificates to track renewable energy by the hour.
How does it differ from traditional Guarantees of Origin?
Traditional guarantees rely on yearly settlement data. Project Origin enables time-and-volume-based certificates that align with 15-minute or hourly spot market intervals.
What cryptographic methods are used for privacy?
The project uses Merkel proofs to ensure registry immutability and Peterson commitments to obfuscate certificate values, preventing the leak of sensitive consumption data.
Is the software open source?
Yes, Project Origin is developed under the Apache License 2.0 and is a community-driven initiative within LF Energy.
Where has the technology been tested?
The technology was tested in a six-month pilot in Denmark with 600 commercial actors and through the Energy Track and Trace initiative with other European TSOs.
About LF Energy
LF Energy is an open source foundation within the Linux Foundation focused on advancing collaboration in digital energy infrastructure.
Learn more: https://lfenergy.org
