Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading and Sharing - 3M (Multi-times, Multi-scales, Multi-qualities)

The future electrical grid will have unprecedented complexity and uncertainty. The cost of low carbon technologies (such as PV, electric vehicles, battery storage and heat pumps) is rapidly decreasing and they are increasingly being connected to the edge of the grid. Millions of businesses and homes, which were traditionally passive energy consumers, will become energy prosumers that can store, convert and/or generate energy enabling them to be an active actor. Each actor will make independent decisions to pursue their own 'selfish' or 'altruistic' goals (supporting schools and increasing reputation). These emerging traits make conventional centralised control, dispatch and scheduling tools no longer fit for purpose. The rise of prosumers, where energy buyers and sellers become increasingly blurred, is far beyond the capability of the current market and system operation framework [Hardy, Ofgem 2015]. The vision of this programme is to address this complex problem by providing strategic direction towards a horizontal energy supply, demonstrate its technical and commercial feasibilities and potential benefits to prosumers, communities and the grid in both Korea and the UK.

The key aim of this consortium is to manage large rapid influx of DERs (e.g. in the Southwest of UK) through increase horizontal energy collaboration/transaction management, thus substantially reduce the integration challenge to the vertical supply system. Managing millions of independent actors, each with a differing value proposition and each having changing levels of variability and uncertainty, is extremely challenging, as minor optimization errors at the individual level can build into major failures and inefficiencies at the regional and system level. Thus, the strategic research question we are addressing is,

"How to align the technical and market arrangements with diverse social requirements, such that 'selfish and independent' goals pursued by millions of customers are aligned with the interests of the communities and the system?"

We will undertake fundamental research into the principles of collaborative consumption/sharing economy and advanced understanding of prosumer energy to deliver a prototype peer-to-peer energy trading/sharing (P2P-ETS) platform. This will lead to a unique scalable market place for mass prosumers to buy/sell/share energy themselves. The goal is to provide an access to mass consumers with markets that encourage low carbon shock to be absorbed locally and substantially reduce the grid balancing and upgrading costs. We will combine leading UK/Korean strengths in smart grids, technologies, whole-system analyses, power system economics, and big data/machine learning to accelerate the understanding, design, development and deployment of P2P-ETS in the UK, Korea and beyond.

This partnership proposal will deliver the initial technical and economic feasibility of introducing peer-to-peer energy trading and sharing and explore the impact that such a system could have on the development of smart transmission and distribution systems. We will understand better prosumer energy habits (generation, demand, variability and dynamics) and be able to inform the future development of social-smart grids over the 2030-2050 timeframe. The ultimate impact of this work is a methodology that has the potential to contribute to building resilience into and keeping the costs down for the end-customer in an increasingly more complex grid. Our ambition is to place the UK and Korea in an internationally leading position in this important field and provide a secure platform for future joint projects.

The potential beneficiaries will be UK and Korean governments, policy makers, regulators, network operators, DER aggregators, communication companies, energy consumers and local communities, academics and society. The project will be supported by a Steering Group (SG) which represents the main potential beneficiaries user groups, consist experts from Western Power Distribution, Northern Power Grid, Swanbarton, National Grid, Ofgem and DECD on the UK side, and the utility company KEPCO, the regulator - MOTIE, device manufacturers: LS industrial systems Ltd., Hyundai Heavy industry Ltd, Hyosung, the market operator - KPX 4.

The impact to beneficiaries will be delivered through Collaboration, Communication, and Exploitation & Application.

Collaboration: The research will be undertaken by 10 geographically separate institutions in two countries, therefore its management requires particular care. We have already established international collaboration framework for meaningful collaboration. For combining the strengths of Korean partners with the UK partners, we have scheduled 6 face-face consortium meetings, 6 teleconferences and 6 secondments for researchers between the two countries and budgeted to guarantee sufficient researcher interactions and collaborations.

Communication: We will establish the project as a visible focal point for Smart Distribution/Smart Grid research in the UK, Korea and internationally. We will learn from international experiences; publicise the aims, objectives, activities, and key findings of the project via launching the project web site, presentations at relevant meetings, publications in professional journals/conferences, and disseminate results through the related research initiatives in EU, UK and Korea. In particular, we will use the face-to-face meeting as opportunities to invite international leaders to share latest research findings, such as Gridwise Architecture Council in the States, ensuring that the UK/Korea are at the forefront of this emerging development. We will link the proposed research with our other networks, including EPSRC Grand Challenges (Energy Storage for Low Carbon Grids, Top and tail, and the Autonomic Power System), SUPERGEN HiDEF, UKERC, Horizon 2020 and ITRC and also several Low Carbon Network Fund projects, to facilitate the wider communication and maximize the research impact.

Exploitation and Application: Standard processes are already in place in each of the partner universities to protect the research outputs, all of whom have dedicated Research and Innovation support staff. Each of the partners will be asked to sign a collaboration agreement covering issues of confidentiality and IPR. Prior intellectual property (IP) will remain with the original owner, while new IP developed in collaboration will be shared equitably between the partners responsible for its development. The opportunities for further development of technology will be actively sought from Korean/UK industry, EPSRC, Innovate UK, EU and KETEP.