ANNOUNCEMENTS
India's energy sector is undergoing a paradigm shift to integrate the increasing volume of embedded renewable generation and rooftop solar has been an essential component of the same. The government has set an ambitious target of installing 100 GW of solar capacity by 2022, out of which 40 GW is projected to come from rooftop solar. It is a rapidly emerging solution as consumers can produce their electricity at their own premises, potentially less expensive than the power drawn from the national grid. In addition, the excess energy generated can be fed into the grid back and the consumers get paid for it. However, the country's rooftop solar project capacity grew to 3 GW (13%) by end of September 2018. This sluggish growth is due to the utilities’ perception on loss of revenue, operational & technical challenges faced in the implementation of Rooftop Solar (RTS). With the addendum of solar rooftop, Peer to peer (P2P) concept was first introduced in 2007, where the energy resources were used in a decentralized manner, rather in a centralized manner and provided trading of energy among the members of the network (peers). Blockchain enables this kind of power flow due to the various leading factors such as payment ease with the help of smart tokens, monetizing the generation sources, decentralized network (no third party required), guaranteed payment and enforcement of trade decisions. Proof of Concept (PoC) is developed for P2P enabled control model in which prosumers (Consumers which produces at their own premises) can trade local generation of solar rooftop systems (with or, without storage). Energy trading is executed through blockchain due to payment ease with the help of smart tokens, increasing transparency and security. This model aims to serve as a use-case for exploring localized energy trading, and will help in the implementation of a commercially viable pilot project, which will be first-of-its-kind in India.
Key Words: - Peer to Peer, Blockchain, Rooftop Solar, Energy Trading, Smart Contracts
