Blockchain marketplace for PV power trading launched in Switzerland
From pv magazine Germany.
A blockchain-based marketplace for solar power in Walenstadt, near St. Gallen in Switzerland has had a successful start: In the first two weeks of this month, the 37 participating households and a retirement home sourced a quarter of their electricity demand from their neighbors.
On sunny days, the rate rose to 37% and well over 32% of the energy generated was traded in the neighborhood, as generators consumed just under half, with around 18% fed into the network of utility the Walenstadt Water and Electricity Company.
The ‘Quartierstrom’, supported by Switzerland’s Federal Office of Energy, is being run by several Swiss universities and companies. The goal of the one-year test run is to develop a viable concept for the local sale of solar power.
A large proportion of the participants have PV systems and those who do not produce their own solar power can purchase locally generated energy from a neighbor.
Set your power price
According to the project partners, prosumers generate higher revenue from the sale of their electricity nearby than from its injection into the grid. Consumers are reportedly also attracted to trade, as they would pay less for electricity from a neighbor than from the utility.
Trades take place directly between participants and, using the portal, producers can set a minimum price and consumers a maximum. A mini computer with an integrated electricity meter and blockchain software was installed in participating households. These blockchain nodes issue bids for the purchase or sale of solar power every 15 minutes according to price settings and calculate – according to an auction mechanism – who receives the surcharge and at what price.
“The system is stable and the market works,” said Arne Meeuw from the Bosch IoT [Internet of Things] Lab at the University of St. Gallen, which is developing the system with researchers from the Bits to Energy Lab at ETH Zurich. “We were surprised at how often the participants logged into the portal to adjust their price limits or retrieve their trading data,” Meeuw said, adding some people would query data several times a day.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: [email protected].
Please login to comment
[…] Italy is slowly adapting and at the moment research shows that about 5% of Italian companies use Blockchain Tech in Energy Sector (source). Commerzbank, Siemens and Continental Complete Blockchain Money Market Pilot in Germany. The aforementioned parties “for the first time” conducted a blockchain-based money market security transaction worth 100,000 euro ($113,340) within a pilot project in January, where Continental acted as the issuer of the security, Commerzbank provided R3’s Corda-based blockchain platform, while Siemens subscribed to the money market security as an investor (source). In Switzerland, there is a pilot project involving 377 households and a retirement home. Solar power is bought and sold on a blockchain-based marketplace for solar power in Walenstadt, near St. Gallen (source). […]
[…] Blockchain in the energy transition: In a survey among German energy executives, the Deutsche Energie-Agentur GmbH (Dena) – the German Energy Agency – and the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT Berlin) have compiled their opinions, current and planned actions, and visions of the future role of the blockchain in the energy sector. The study examined the contribution of blockchain to the energy transition with eleven concrete cases from the fields of asset management, data management, market communication, electricity trading and financing. Author Andreas Kuhlmann noted that blockchain can be particularly useful if it complements existing digital information exchange protocols. The German Energy Agency hopes that the study’s findings will also be used in the federal government’s upcoming blockchain strategy. Meanwhile, a blockchain-based marketplace for solar power in Walenstadt, near St. Gallen in Switzerland had a successful start: In the first two weeks of this month, the 37 participating households and a retirement home sourced a quarter of their electricity demand from their neighbors. shop.dena.de, pv-magazine.com […]