French utility giant Électricité de French republic has joined the Hedera Governing Council every bit a node operator. EDF, which is among the top v global utility firms, represents the first from its manufacture to bring together the council and will utilize the technology equally part of its aim to accomplish carbon neutrality by 2050.

The Hedera network is a public, enterprise-grade blockchain that is owned and governed past private entities. EDF joins the likes of IBM, Google, Boeing as node operators, with each having an equal vote in the future direction of the software. Each fellow member can serve for a maximum three-year term, with the possibility of serving for two consecutive terms. The creator and proprietor of Hedera's Hashgraph algorithm, Swirlds, retains a permanent seat on the quango.

EDF'southward wholly-owned subsidiary, Exaion, which already runs a Tezos (XTZ) node in France, volition leverage the Hedera network every bit part of its blockchain-as-a-service offerings. Hedera's proof-of-stake network is expected to course the energy-efficient basis of EDF's exploration into condign carbon neutral.

Gilles Deleuze, principal researcher in systems risk assessment at EDF R&D, said distributed ledger engineering would spur the development of greenhouse gas certificates, decentralized electricity systems, and more:

"In the near future, distributed computing will support increasingly decentralized electrical systems, circuitous supply chains and exchanges of digital assets, energy certificates, GHG credits, and more. Multiple pieces of the distributed ledger technology ecosystem volition form the puzzle pieces that make this vision a reality."

Deleuze said EDF would leverage tokenization on Hedera (the Hedera Token Service) to create a "carbon offset and credit organization" in line with the company's goal of cutting CO2 emissions.

"Nosotros believe in partnering with manufacture leaders like Hedera Hashgraph to explore innovative technologies and organizational modes, build value-creating ecosystems, develop use cases for the energy domain and EDF'south operations, and develop Exaion's potential to deliver blockchain/DLT and high-operation computing services," Deleuze said.

Lionel Chocron, chief product officer at Hedera Hashgraph, said that the maturation of distributed ledger technologies was pushing companies to explore decentralized solutions, stating:

"Today's about frontwards-thinking organizations recognize that the maturation of distributed computing requires the use of multiple technologies and efforts to deliver on the services their customers want."

The proprietary nature of Hedera lays the foundation for its "no hardfork guarantee," promising long-term stability for businesses and enterprises which employ its applied science. In January, Australian payment giant Eftpos became a Hedera node operator. More than recently, Hedera made inroads to Africa afterwards the continent's largest banking company joined the governing quango.