Sharing energy among friends
In a posh Bangkok neighbourhood, residents trade energy with blockchain, reports Rina Chandran, of the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
RESIDENTS in a Bangkok neighbourhood are trying out a renewable energy trading platform that allows them to buy and sell electricity between themselves, signalling the growing popularity of such systems as solar panels get cheaper.
The pilot project in the centre of Thailand’s capital is among the world’s largest peertopeer renewable energy trading platforms using blockchain, according to the firms involved.
The system has a total generating capacity of 635kW that can be traded via Bangkok city’s electricity grid between a mall, a school, a dental hospital and an apartment complex.
Commercial operations will begin next month, said David Martin, managing director of Power Ledger, an Australian firm that develops technology for the energy industry and is a partner in the project.
‘‘By enabling trade in renewable energy, the community meets its own energy demands, leading to lower bills for buyers, better prices for sellers, and a smaller carbon footprint for all,’’ he said.
‘‘It will encourage more consumers to make the switch to renewable energy, as the cost can be offset by selling excess energy to neighbours.’’
Neighbourhoods from New York to Melbourne are upending the way power is produced and sold by using solar panels, mini grids and smart meters that can measure when energy is consumed rather than overall consumption.
The World Energy Council predicts such decentralised energy will grow to about 25% of the market in 2025 from 5% today.
Helping it along is blockchain, the distributed ledger technology that underpins bitcoin currency, which offers a transparent way to handle complex transactions between users, producers, and even traders and utilities.
Blockchain also saved individuals the drudgery of switching between sending power and receiving it, Martin said.
For the pilot in Bangkok’s upmarket Sukhumvit neighbourhood, electricity generated by each of the four locations will be initially used within that building. Excess energy can be sold to the others through the trading system.
If there is a surplus from all four, it will be sold to the local energy storage system, and to the grid in the future, said Gloyta Nathalang, a spokeswoman for Thai renewable energy firm BCPG, which installed the meters and solar panels.
Thailand aims to have renewable energy account for 30% of final energy consumption by 2036.
The energy ministry has encouraged community renewable energy projects to reduce fossil fuel usage, and the regulator is drafting new rules to permit the trade of energy.