Power trading: The next big step towards power for all

Our Virtual Power Plant Power (VPP) network is the next step in helping P2P users maximise value of their PV panel investment. 
Vinod Tiwari, Head of Business Development, Power Ledger

Vinod Tiwari, Head of Business Development, Power Ledger, talks about peer-to-peer blockchain, a platform through which one can sell off the excess power generated from renewable energy and grid applications. He further talks about earning incentives from one’s installed solar infrastructure.

What is peer-to-peer (P2P) blockchain trading and what are its benefits and applications in the power sector?
Power Ledger’s peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading platform is built off blockchain. Blockchain is essentially a decentralised digital ledger, with additional benefits of being immutable, secure and completely transparent to all parties involved in a transaction.

Power Ledger’s P2P blockchain-enabled energy trading platform allows people sell their excess renewable energy with their neighbours. For example, if you own rooftop solar panels, you can trade or share your excess solar power with your neighbour who may not have the funds to install their own rooftop solar, enabling more access to clean, green energy. This effectively means RE asset owners (prosumers) get improved return on their investment (ROI) and consumers are able to buy and access cheaper and cleaner energy from their neighbours. Our platform, thus, acts as a market-based mechanism that enables sharing, trading and gifting of energy; this further incentivises communities to accelerate deployment of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) such as rooftop solar and energy storage systems.

Blockchain does this by making each transaction accessible for participants and secured via cryptography — a method of protecting information and communications through the use of codes. Also, you cannot change or rearrange the transaction once placed. This also helps the renewable energy certificate (REC) marketplace by preventing the RECs to be owned by two people at the same time or used once it has been retired.

Blockchain’s ability to process transactions in almost near to real time has reaping benefits for trading RECs and buying and selling renewable energy via P2P. Other key applications in the power sector include using blockchain for provenance tracking of renewable energy, Virtual Power Plants, and Green PPA.

How can P2P energy trading promote the installation and use of renewable energy?
P2P energy trading offers monetary incentives to people to invest in renewable energy infrastructure like rooftop solar panels.

Just like Uber and AirBnB, Power Ledger’s P2P platform enables people to earn from the excess energy generated by them in their solar infrastructure like solar power from PV modules and rooftop solar.

Selling off your excess solar energy can help you create a passive income stream that can further be utilised to pay off your solar installations faster. This option gives people more incentives to install renewable/solar energy infrastructure, knowing that they have another income means to support their investment.

P2P trading encourages use of renewable energy by giving it to people who can’t afford renewable energy infrastructure like solar installation, and access to their neighbours’ solar energy, increasing the use of renewable energy in the broader community.

Instead of offering subsidies like premium feed-in-tariff, governments and policymakers can use this as a market-based mechanism to incentivise communities and accelerate deployment of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) in a fair and equitable way.

What steps do you plan to take to improve P2P energy trading and attract more buyers to your platform?
Our Virtual Power Plant Power (VPP) network is the next step in helping P2P users maximise value of their PV panel investment. A VPP network monitors demand in the electricity market, allowing households to take advantage of price spikes and maximise the revenue generated from selling their solar-generated energy back to the grid. Our trial in South Australia is showing that our VPP can deliver thousands in annual savings and revenue for a single household, based on Australian energy prices and feed-in-tariffs.

What is your outlook for the renewable energy sector for the next two years?
Governments are waking up to the challenges presented by climate change and renewable energy will remain a key priority.

Power Ledger believes that renewable energy adoption will continue its rapid growth as costs (like solar infrastructure) fall and capacity factors increase, fuelled by battery storage development.

Power Ledger is a technology company and we are working within an industry that already has existing infrastructure — the energy market just isn’t using it as efficiently as it could be. Power Ledger is wanting to and is working with electricity retailers, distributors and systems operators in many countries. In most cases, we are finding that these stakeholders are open to our P2P energy trading and VPP opportunities that can help alleviate reliability issues and peak demand pressures and reduce costs.

Power Ledger’s technology can help transform many areas of the renewable energy sector and our platform is already demonstrating increased efficiency across a range of projects spanning Europe, Asia, Australia and the US.