Power Ledger completes blockchain-enabled P2P trial with KEPCO
During the trial, KEPCO shared meter data from eight participating meters that simulated prosumers and consumers at Tatsumi Research Lab in Osaka
New Delhi: Blockchain-enabled power trading company Power Ledger has completed a five-month trial with Japan’s utility, KEPCO of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) transaction for post-Feed in Tariff (FIT) surplus power in Osaka.
The trial demonstrated P2P surplus power transaction to be completed autonomously including settlements with cryptocurrency regardless of fluctuations of PV generation and customer demands.
Power Ledger provided KEPCO access to its trading platform to facilitate and monitor energy trading between participants to increase the incentive for the development of renewable distributed energy resources (DERs).
KEPCO General Manager Fumiaki Ishida said: “Although there are still many challenges like amendments of relevant laws for commercialization, Power Ledger’s product presents significant opportunities for prosumers to sell their excessive energy at more advantageous prices and for consumers to buy it at more affordable prices.”
“The success of the KEPCO trial is an extension of successful projects, Power Ledger has deployed in other markets leveraging the ongoing development of our technology,” said David Martin, Managing Director, Power Ledger.
Japan currently has 40 GW of installed solar capacity, however a drastic reduction in FIT for solar power is scheduled for October 2019.
As of October, the first tranche of FIT customers who entered into this program run by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) in 2009 will become ineligible to receive the FIT.
More than 500,000 FIT customers will be affected by this change and this number will continue to escalate per year by approximately 200,000 additional customers.
Under the current business model, Japan solar PV owners receive a lucrative FIT for energy exported back to the grid of around ¥40/kWh. The Japanese public has spent more than ¥10 trillion ($92.8B) since the tariff’s introduction in July 2012.
The trial results of Power Ledger-KEPCO peer-to-peer energy trading were that, over 55 kWh of solar energy was traded per week, which, if measured on an annualised basis would equate to 2,860 kwh.
In Phase 2, there were over 3,500 energy transactions each week. About 20 per cent of energy consumed by the participants was renewable. The Power Ledger platform enables solar owners to retain their faster payback options.
“Power Ledger has created software that allows for peer-to-peer energy trading from rooftop solar panels allowing energy users to gain access to renewable power sources regardless of whether they have solar panels or not,” Power Ledger co-founder and chairman Jemma Green told ETEnergyWorld.
This means solar panel households can track payments of their excess energy and can also sell it at a more competitive price than selling it back to the grid or an energy retailer.
If energy users were trading excess solar with each other on a larger scale using their platform, this could have saved more than ¥2 trillion ($18.5B) in 2019 alone, she said.
“Under the current FIT system, energy retailers pass the costs of purchasing electricity from renewable energy sources onto consumers via their electricity bills. This equates to more than ¥2 trillion” said Dr. Green in an interview to ETEnergyWorld.
Asked whether this kind of experiment could work in India, she said some states in the country are actively considering the introduction of blockchain-enabled P2P energy trading.
“One of the largest states of India, Uttar Pradesh (UP), has recently made amendments to introduce P2P energy trading in a controlled way. Power Ledger has been in discussions with many electricity regulators and utilities and assessing these implementation programs,” Green said.
Source: energy.economictimes.indiatimes
