A survey on peer-to-peer energy trading for local communities: Challenges, applications, and enabling technologies

Electricity is still a highly demanding resource in developing countries, especifically in rural areas. Local communities in developing countries are now focusing on generating their own electricity using solar and trading the energy which is in access to the supplier. Energy trading at the peer-to-peer level is a novel paradigm. It allows customers to contribute energy to the grid and power generation and supply companies. In this paper, we investigate the energy trading enabling technologies, their applications, challenges, and benefits to the local communities from various aspects. We analyse how blockchain and IoT technologies can help energy trading at the customer level from recent research proposals. We also present our analysis of recent research on the implementation of energy trading technologies and future directions.

Automated summary

This paper investigates the highly demanding resource of electricity in developing countries, specifically in rural areas. It focuses on local communities generating their own electricity using solar and trading the energy with suppliers. Peer-to-peer energy trading is analyzed as a novel paradigm that allows customers to contribute energy to the grid and power generation and supply companies. The research explores the enabling technologies, applications, challenges, and benefits of energy trading, and presents an analysis of recent research proposals and implementations of blockchain and IoT technologies in customer-level energy trading.