Towards Embedding Network Usage Charges Within a Peer-to-Peer Electricity Marketplace

This paper proposes a novel tariff regime for peer-to-peer energy trading, with an aim to increase transmission efficiency and grid stability by penalising long distance power transactions. In this scheme a portion of the transacted energy is withheld based on the electrical distance between buying and selling parties, calculated here according to the Klein Resistance Distance. This tariff regime is simulated using a dataset of producers and consumers over a 24-hour period. First, a notional marketplace equilibrium simulation is performed, in which consumers can optimally activate demand response resources to exploit local availability of energy. Consumers are observed to move some demand away from peak times to make use of local generation availability. These simulated market out-turns are then used as inputs to a time series power flow analysis, in order to evaluate the network’s electrical performance. The regime is found to decrease grid losses and the magnitude of global voltage angle separation. However, the metric whereby taxes are calculated is found to be too skewed in the utility’s favour and may discourage adoption of the peer-to-peer system. The method also attempts to encourage regulatory adoption by existing grid operators and utilities. Some counter-intuitive allocations of tokenised energy occur, owing to specific consumers’ demand profiles and proximity to generators.