TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) has developed a blockchain-powered platform to promote P2P transactions of solar energy among customers in the same area.

Formed in association with Noida-based blockchain and IoT start-up ‘Sofocle Technologies Limited,’ the platform employs blockchain technology to guarantee transparency, security, and efficiency in the transactions that will take place among users.

The platform emerged as a prototype for facilitating P2P transactional control that provides electricity consumers like residential premises, schools, malls, or even small and medium businesses to trade local power generation from rooftop solar plants between themselves.

The platform will assist in promoting the approval of rooftop solar PV systems, especially in the residential customer segment, as it will incentivize users by providing extra incentives of trading among themselves, in the supplement to selling to the distribution utility.

India intends to introduce 40 GW of electricity capacity from rooftop based solar plants by 2022. The increase among residential consumers has been quiet in contrast to the commercial segments.

“The successful deployment of this prototype would help in scaling up the adoption of rooftop solar in the domestic consumer category,” according to Alekhya Datta, fellow and area convenor, TERI. He imagined and started the development of this prototype after TERI’s pitch for the same gained appreciation at the Global Blockchain Congress at Kolkata in December 2018.

In this prototype, electricity patrons can securely sign in to their accounts, set proposals, and quote their value for regionally generated energy. A distinct portal for distribution utilities is also open for user and meter identity management.

The platform also produces reports displaying total units produced, total settlements, and used via tokens.

“Subscribers to such local energy markets-based services can trade clean solar energy in the form of energy tokens, just like cryptocurrency,” according to Nilesh Hadiya and Sweta Malik, who is member of the TERI team that worked on the prototype development.

The prototype is now designed to be mounted up to a field pilot with potential implementation on an actual network of a distribution utility or an institutional campus employing smart meters.

The real-time demand and excess electricity production available from rooftop installed solar plants will be observed, and prospective sellers and buyers will have their bids realized through a market-based process.

TERI has earlier described the use of blockchain technology as a facilitator for electric vehicle (EV) selection in India—a market that is mostly kept back by a lack of sufficient charging base.

A TERI presentation in West Bengal at the Global Blockchain Congress last year revealed that a blockchain-based application could allow individuals to share their EV chargers with other EV consumers near their premises, thereby enhancing the utilization of personally owned EV chargers, and retrieve high upfront finance cost.

Based on a P2P model of communication, electric vehicle owners near a charging site can seek and utilize the stations to energize their vehicle’s batteries.

Owners of electric vehicle charging stations that can be registered on blockchain-based smart-phone apps would be a member of a public directory and could make their charging services accessible to the public at times when they are not utilizing them. In return, they can be incentivized to give charging facilities to other EV buyers within set rules.