A Bitcoin-style virtual currency could save Europe’s power grids from reaching breaking point as more and more “prosumers” come on line, the European Commission’s Horizon magazine reports . Prosumers ‒ a buzzword in the emerging sharing economy ‒ are consumers who also put energy back into the network from domestic wind turbines and solar panels.
The European Union is aiming for an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050, but European energy distribution networks are organized top-down, for large providers that distribute energy to consumers either directly or through smaller local providers.
More and more consumers are becoming prosumers, who produce part or all of their own energies with renewable “green” technologies such as solar energy, and are willing to trade energy with their peers. It’s estimated that in countries like Belgium, 8 to 12 percent of households have become prosumers, and the trend is expected to continue. However, recent studies show that if 50 percent of households were to become energy-trading prosumers, the European energy distribution networks would become inefficient and waste significant amounts of green energy.
Local energy exchange grids could permit reducing wastes and making the system as a whole more efficient. But for this to happen the European power grids need to be turned into “smart grids” that permit producing and consuming energy locally, cutting down on the transmission loss which occurs over longer distances.
Enter Scanergy , a scalable and modular system for energy trading between prosumers. The project, funded by the European Union’s Seventh Programme for research, technological development and demonstration, is based on an intelligent multi-agent system that can manage the electricity produced and consumed both on a lower level (dwellings and neighborhoods) as well as on a higher level (cities). The Scanergy system enables the smart energy trade between prosumers, while coping with the […]
