Blockchain-based electricity trading platform launched in German municipality
Abstract |Wildpoldsried will be the focus for the demo phase of a research project by Siemens, the regional utility Allgäuer Überlandwerk and partners to help develop a local energy marketplace.
【 Published by SmartCitiesWorld | Editor: SmartCitiesWorld news team 】
Wildpoldsried in the Bavarian Allgäu region will become the first German municipality to utilise a blockchain-based electricity trading platform called Pebbles to help develop a local energy market.
The platform is part of a research project by Siemens, the regional utility Allgäuer Überlandwerk (AÜW) and various partners.
Demo phase
During the platform’s demonstration phase, private producers can use an app to market their electricity directly to local consumers without going through marketers or traditional grid operators.
The market platform also supports flexible power from battery storage or controllable loads such as heat pumps or charging stations for electric vehicles. The blockchain technology, which forms the basis for managing market transactions, is designed to create end-to-end transparency and trust between users.
Sabine Erlinghagen, CEO of digital grid at Siemens Smart Infrastructure, explained that the digital platform connects producers, consumers and storage facilities so they can optimise the way they locally trade energy with each other.
She added: “This allows systems generating power from renewable energy sources to remain economically attractive after government subsidies run out and continue to produce CO2-free power and feed it into the grid in a way that benefits the entire system.”
“This makes a vital contribution to the government’s energy and digital policy goals as well as to the energy transition in the Allgäu region”
Consumers — also the customers — can define preferences for electricity purchases, such as the percentage and price for electricity from local photovoltaic and wind energy systems. With funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, the goal of the Pebbles project is to demonstrate that bottlenecks in the grid can be avoided through local energy and flexibility trading, therefore lowering the costs associated with the energy transition.
“The pebbles project is impressive proof of how different stakeholders from science, industry and the public sector can work together on an innovative solution,” said Andreas Feicht, state secretary at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. “This makes a vital contribution to the government’s energy and digital policy goals as well as to the energy transition in the Allgäu region.”
One-dimensional energy systems where suppliers transfer energy to passive objects are being superseded by smart multi-dimensional models where previously-passive consumers become active consumers or even producers. With the aid of controllable loads or energy storage devices, they can also inject flexibility to balance fluctuations in electricity generation.
Decarbonisation
The path to decarbonisation chosen by the German Federal Government requires a continued increase in the percentage of electricity from distributed producers. With the conversion to e-mobility and heat pumps, the number of electrical consumers and the demand for electricity will increase at the same time. These changes can cause temporary bottlenecks in the power grid as well as power fluctuations that need to be addressed.
This necessitates intensive expansion at certain points in the distribution grid, which is associated with high costs. Projects such as Pebbles aim to show grid operators real alternatives to cost and time-intensive expansion of the grid. At the same time, they meet the requests of end users for a more active role in the energy system.
“If we don’t do it, somebody else will, because the market demands it. We would rather act as an innovative platform operator that supports the energy transition than stay out of the game.”
“As a regional energy supplier, we have been involved for years in numerous projects for the future of local energy. We don’t wait for solutions; we develop them,” said Michael Lucke, CEO of Allgäuer Überlandwerk.
“When asked why as an electricity supplier we’re developing a platform that would make us ‘superfluous’ in the electricity trade, I happily answer: ‘If we don’t do it, somebody else will, because the market demands it’. We would rather act as an innovative platform operator that supports the energy transition than stay out of the game.”
Project partners Siemens, AÜW, grid operator AllgäuNetz, Kempten University of Applied Sciences, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology (FIT) have jointly developed the platform, management systems and app, taking grid limitations, and production and load forecasts into account.
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