Can Denmark’s energy supply become more sustainable and resilient by learning from India?
A recently completed network project involving Danish and Indian research institutions, companies, and NGOs explores how Denmark can develop a greener and more resilient energy supply.
Written 25 August, 2026 08:00 by Jari Kickbusch
For two years, Yvonne Dittrich has led the recently completed project, Danish-India Bilateral Research Initiative on Digitalised Green Hydrogen Ecosystems (also known as H2BRIDGE), in which researchers from ITU and DTU collaborated with researchers, companies, and NGOs in a Danish-Indian network. The aim of the project, funded by the Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science, was to strengthen research collaboration between Denmark and India on digitalised green hydrogen ecosystems.
“The collaboration has resulted in a joint research project between DTU, Indian universities, and Indian and Danish industry. Another key outcome is a joint roadmap on green hydrogen systems, which systematically identifies research gaps and outlines future directions across system modelling, renewable plant design, digitalisation of the energy grid, and market integration,” Yvonne Dittrich says.
Decentralised energy supply
The network collaboration not only provided a basis for examining whether hydrogen can be utilised to create sustainable energy systems. During a visit to India, Yvonne Dittrich observed how India uses decentralised resources to meet its growing demand for electricity. Many Indian households and businesses have alternative ways of generating and storing energy. For example, rooftop solar panels are very common. During the project, she learned about the launch of a peer-to-peer platform enabling the trading of surplus electricity.
According to Yvonne Dittrich, this could potentially contribute to greater resilience in Denmark, as our energy supply largely depends on a small number of large providers.
“Decentralised structures are more resilient as they do not rely on a single actor: the system works even when individual nodes are taken offline,” says Yvonne Dittrich.
Resilience
The foundation of the peer-to-peer platform is the Beckn Protocol, an open-source protocol that allows transactions without a central intermediary. In the research article Beyond platforms — Growing distributed transaction networks for digital commerce, Yvonne Dittrich and her co-authors examine how decentralised digital infrastructures can be developed and governed using the Beckn protocol for transactions in digital commercial networks with small actors. The article is based on the idea that transactions and data can be handled like messages on the internet—across many small actors—thereby promoting inclusion, innovation, and robustness.
“The research shows that decentralised business transactions are technically possible, but also that governance mechanisms need to be carefully designed and implemented for each domain. The introduction of peer-to-peer electricity trading in India provides a better understanding of what governance is needed for the decentralisation and flexibilisation of the electricity system,” says Yvonne Dittrich.
Sustainability
A decentralised energy supply could potentially contribute to the goal of creating sustainable societies. In India, the Beckn Protocol has been used to trade electricity for electric vehicles and charging stations. Visionary start-ups and small businesses enable users to choose charging powered by renewable energy sources and facilitate the trading of green electricity between producers and consumers. This reduces transaction costs and promotes climate-friendly solutions.
“Opening up to peer-to-peer energy in Denmark could potentially make solar panels on the roofs of apartment and office buildings more lucrative. More rooftop solar panels would move energy production closer to consumption, relieving the strain on the interregional connection of the network and potentially reducing the need for some of the huge solar energy generators in the countryside. It would, however, require more flexibility on the consumer side as well,” explains Yvonne Dittrich.
Perspective
In recent years, India has sought to move away from a centralised architecture to create better conditions for decentralised and sustainable energy production. According to Yvonne Dittrich, Denmark should learn from this development to better understand both its opportunities and challenges.
“One of the major challenges is the development of adequate governance structures for such decentralised solutions. I am part of two current proposals that – if successful – will provide funding for PhD students to explore the governance of decentralised digital public infrastructures in other domains. A dream scenario would be to be part of an Indo-Danish project that explores how peer-to-peer trading of electricity can become possible,” she concludes.
Jari Kickbusch, phone 7218 5304, email jark@itu.dk