The EU NEMoGrid project, with the participation of various companies and research institutes from Germany, Switzerland and Sweden, is studying the economic and technical effect when households trade self-generated solar power to other households within a given area, with the exchange mediated by blockchain technology.
“The goal of energy supply must be to generate as much clean energy as possible right where it is being consumed. If households can sell their own power to their neighbours, this influences local electricity prices and the power grid. Ideally, people would trade in energy and at the same time stabilize the local grids, thus avoiding expensive grid interventions whenever possible. Blockchain is the right decentralised technology to control such a self-balancing system in real time”, says Jean-Baptiste Cornefert, Managing Director of sonnen eServices, one of the participants.
Sonnen comments that the advantage of using blockchain technology is that both the households and the distribution grid operators have transparency with regards to every kilowatt hour that is traded between participants. At the same time, transactions are transparent and there are no additional costs for electricity trading.