Tokenized energy: the free market, I-REC, and PPAs with contractual backing

Electric energy becomes a tokenizable asset when there is a contract or a certificate behind it, something that can be identified, transferred, and settled. In Brazil, three instruments fill this role: the contracts of the free market (ACL), I-REC certificates, and PPAs. Tokenizing them means representing these contracts on-chain, with backing and traceability from generation to consumption.

The opening of the free market

For years, only large consumers could choose who to buy energy from. That is changing. Law 15.269/2025, enacted in November 2025, opens the free market to low voltage gradually: commercial and industrial consumers by the end of 2027, the rest by 2028.

The scale is the point: the sector has ~94 million consumer units, and more than 80 thousand are already in the free environment, according to the CCEE. Each migration is a new contract, and a contract is exactly what gets tokenized.

The instruments

• I-REC (International REC Standard): certifies that 1 MWh was generated by a renewable source. In Brazil, the local issuer is the Instituto Totum. It is the instrument that separates "energy" from "verifiably clean energy".
• PPA (Power Purchase Agreement): a long-term energy purchase and sale contract, generally between a generator and a consumer.
• ACL contracts (Free Contracting Environment): where generator and consumer negotiate price and term directly.

What tokenization changes

These contracts today live in spreadsheets and PDFs, with manual settlement and fragile traceability. On-chain, they gain three things:

1. Traceability: from the origin of generation to final consumption, without double counting of the same certificate.
2. Automation: settlement and cash-flow distribution programmed into the token itself, as we already described for receivables.
3. Liquidity: an asset previously locked into a bilateral contract becomes transferable within a permissioned structure.

The usual honesty applies: tokenizing does not create energy nor guarantee a price, it only gives a digital, traceable, and automatable rail to contracts that already exist. And the opening of the market is gradual and underway, not an already consolidated scenario.

If you generate, trade, or consume energy in the free market and want to understand the tokenization path, talk to us. See also the Energy Tokenization solution.