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Blockchain Technology Could Enable Next-Generation, Peer-To-Peer Energy Microgrids
An experimental energy microgrid in Brooklyn, New York, shows how energy-generating homes can become part of a peer-to-peer electricity system, Fast Coexist reports. The project, part of the Brooklyn Microgrid ? a distributed energy development group in the Park Slope and Gowanus communities of Brooklyn, creating a connected network for local energy ? also shows how distributed ledger technology could enable the emerging "energy Internet."
The project starts small: "On one side of President Street, five homes with solar panels generate electricity. On the other side, five homes buy power when the opposite homes don't need it. In the middle is a blockchain network, managing and recording transactions with little human interaction." But the idea is big, and could represent the future of community-managed energy systems.
The project, called TransActive Grid, is a joint venture between Brooklyn Microgrid developer LO3 Energy and blockchain technology developer ConsenSys, a startup focused on Ethereum applications, whose partnership with Microsoft for cloud-based blockchain applications has been recently covered by Bitcoin Magazine.
"We're setting up a market on this street for renewable electrons to test if people are interested in buying them from each other," says LO3's founder Lawrence Orsini. "If you produce energy far away, there's a lot of losses, and you don't get the value of those electrons. But if they're right across the street, there's a lot of environmental and system efficiency that's being realized from being very close to one another."
The Transactive Grid is a pilot project that, if successful, could be extended to the whole Brooklyn Microgrid. According to Orsini, 130 homes have expressed interest so far. Orsini's key point ? that the local exchanges enabled by smart energy grids can be much more efficient and environmentally friendly than traditional top-down energy distribution systems ? could permit important overall cost savings, benefit society as a whole and demonstrate the power of distributed ledgers.