The third-largest electricity supplier in Japan is emerging as among the first big companies in the globe to try a bitcoin payment technology.

Chubu Electric Power Co. has signed a proof-of-concept with Nayuta, a local bitcoin & Internet of Things (IoT) startup as exclusively revealed to CoinDesk. The concept will help Chubu to find out how payments of using bitcoin can be established through the Lightning Network – the in-development protocol that seeks to reduce the expenses of bitcoin users.

Being proud of over 200 power generation facilities and 15,000 employees, Chubu is currently utilizing Lightning to bring a new sample that allows customers to pay for charging electric vehicles.

In the demo, Chubu and Nayuta demonstrated how a Lightning payment could be sent to the charger of an electric vehicle that after the payment, instantly turns on and energizes a real-life vehicle.

Hidehiro Ichikawa, the senior manager at Chubu Electric Power Co., expressed to CoinDesk that the test is part of the firm’s market research into the way bitcoin might power its IoT necessities. However, he acknowledged still the test doesn’t have official plans to endorse Lightning payments from customers.

In that approach, the story of Chubu resonates with others who are captivated by digital currencies but also frustrated by unexploited capabilities. For instance, Chubu has some experience with bitcoin for IoT, however, got a wake-up call after realizing that blockchain is not simple as it's marketed.

Ichikawa told CoinDesk, "Because the charge of electricity is small, Lightning Network is crucial to minimize the charges by using public blockchains."

Kenichi Kurimoto, Nayuta CEO believes the test is a signal for something greater. It is an enterprise interest in utilizing bitcoin to enable IoT payments via a cost-friendly manner with Lightning.

Kurimoto added, “For applications in IoT and blockchain, real-time payments are needed, and we have proved second layer payments can offer the solution”.

Lightning + electricity = <3

But it was not only Nayuta and Chubu involved in the test.
To prove one way Lightning is capable of working for IoT, the two firms attached a Lightning node into an electronic vehicle charger and then plugged it into the car. From that, they also included Infoteria, Japanese software startup which coded the mobile app to allow for the user experience.

After pressing the "send" button, that app communicates with the charger via Bluetooth or WiFi, in delivering the message and turning the power on. You can view the way it operates from Nayuta as shown in the two videos above and below.

Notably, the firms involved did not utilize real bitcoin during the test, as some "reckless" companies did recently. Instead, they sent replica bitcoin via a closed test network that they have control.

Besides, the test was successful and provided that Lightning can, in fact, make instant and small payments for electric vehicle charging.

Hitomi Moriyama, Nayuta spokesperson, emphasized that a similar setup might one day be used in ordinary parking lots. Users will simply utilize Lightning bitcoin payments when charging up their car, which is same to how the chargers are refilled using credit cards today.

Hitomi added that, "[Lightning] makes it achievable to run a highly dependable charge managing system whereby users will pay a small introduction charge”.

Impact and Outlook

Also, even though the test reflects what took place on other blockchains, probably, this one is a special one considering the scope and size of Chubu and the ongoing dedication of some involved parties.

As stressed by Ichikawa, the experiment done by Chubu is an early proof-of-concept and could not explain in details how it would influence the company’s product including the amount of money the firm is spending on this project.

With that said, Nayuta is planning to proceed with its whole business commitments in exploring the same.

Moriyama said to CoinDesk, “We will go on developing and experimenting and arrive at the best kind of architecture for using Lightning Network for IoT”.

According to Kurimoto, Nayuta is currently working to enable compatibility of its software with three other key Lightning software accomplishments that are mostly applied today.

Furthermore, Kurimto has introduced Lightning developer mailing list to his team in an attempt to operate more closely on enterprise technology applications.