Singapore Local Energy Market Development Using Blockchain Enabled P2P Trading

Abstract

The proposed system develops a peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading-based Local Energy Market (LEM) solution which optimizes distributed energy resources (DERs). The blockchain-based trading platform allows secure and transparent P2P energy trading in a grid-connected power network. In the P2P network, a participant with a surplus of renewable energy (such as solar photovoltaic (PV)) can trade excess with any other participants with an energy deficit. However, in business-as-usual (BAU), it has been fed back to the power grid or curtailed - which can be extremely costly to the grid. The energy traded through solar PV and battery energy storage system (BESS) via P2P trading is cheaper than the respective tariff of the grid.The main aim of the LEM is to mitigate power outages and accelerate the transition to clean energy through increased rooftop solar PV installation by motivating consumers and prosumers to invest in DERs. The LEM implements a marketplace for optimizing distributed energy resources (DERs). In doing so, the LEM can minimize lost energy from existing DER capacity, provide a financial incentive to generate renewable energy beyond the site it is generated at, and improve the savings and profits compared to a BAU case. Simplified, a LEM provides participants with cheaper, greener, and more reliable energy. The LEM maximizes a participant's yield from their solar PV panels, increasing the investment's profitability.Due to the benefits provided, implementing LEM accelerates renewable energy deployment with no government incentives. These benefits are achieved by utilizing a low-energy, high-speed proprietary Blockchain in tandem with the microservice-based architecture used in the software, which develops a secure trading network that is both easily scalable and highly resilient.