A distributed ledger based platform for community-driven flexibility provision

Abstract In this paper we propose and analyze a community-driven platform for flexibility provision based on a distributed ledger. We introduce and analyze the platform for the use case of a self-organized decentralized virtual power plant consisting of a local community of individual prosumers with photovoltaic-storages located on a low voltage feeder. Like a virtual power plant, it aggregates small-scale assets and is able to provide ancillary services in the form of active power provision to the electrical power system. However, the decentralized virtual power plant provides a direct flexibility market access of the distributed assets without the need for a third party. Thus, balancing group managers or system operators can directly interact with the distributed assets in an aggregated way without the need for an aggregator. The solution approach uses a heuristic algorithm for the coordination combined with a distributed ledger and democratic consensus within the community. We propose the concept in detail, describe the prototypical implementation based on a consortium Ethereum blockchain and discuss results of the proof-of-concept. Our numerous test runs with up to 20 participants showed that the coordinated flexibility provision, energy sharing and according financial settlement works in practice, but would need an upgrade concerning the smart-meter hardware for an implementation in the field. We analyze the impact of the coordination interval on the community self-sufficiency and determine that one minute intervals are enough to reach 96% of the optimum. We evaluate the storage and communication effort and conclude with suggestions for future improvements and other possible applications of the decentralized platform like aggregated flexibility coordination between balancing group managers and system operators.