Verena Tiefenbeck presented on a peer-to-peer energy trading project in Switzerland called Quartierstrom. The project involved 37 households and a retirement home trading solar energy locally using a blockchain-based system. Technical challenges were solved and the system almost doubled the community's self-consumption and self-sufficiency rates. Users engaged more actively than expected by setting price limits to buy and sell energy through a double auction mechanism run every 15 minutes. The project aims to evaluate the real-world feasibility of local peer-to-peer electricity markets.

1. Verena Tiefenbeck
Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology (ETH Zurich)
Webinar
UsersTCP – User-Centered
Energy Systems
Nov. 28, 2019
Peer-to-Peer energy trading and
community self-consumption

2. In a nutshell…
Switzerland’s first local peer-to-peer electricity market (and one of the first worldwide)
• Community of 37 households (+ retirement home)
• Field phase started in January 2019
• Goal: evaluating real-world feasibility
• Research focus on technical feasibility, market design, and user behavior
Results
• Technical aspects: challenging, but can be solved
• Self-consumption and self-sufficiency of the community almost doubled
• Users were more active than expected
2

3. The project is supported by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy within
the framework of its pilot, demonstration and flagships program.
3
Swiss Federal Office of
Energy (SFOE)
Universities Industry Partners

4. In Quartierstrom, we implemented a peer-to-peer electricity market in
the real world and evaluate its practical feasibility.
Main research focus of the team at ETH Zurich & University of St. Gallen
• Technical feasibility (blockchain architecture)
• Market design and mechanisms
• User interaction and engagement
Project partners lead work on
• Business models
• Regulatory aspects
• Privacy aspects
4

5. Peer-to-peer energy markets
Trading solar energy among peers
5

6. The energy market is undergoing a fundamental transformation.
6
• Increasing number of smaller, distributed
generators
Yesterday Today Tomorrow?
• Centralized production
• One-directional flow of electricity
• Energy generation primarily in big power plants
• Centralized wholesale market
• Prices do not reflect availability of renewable
energy, but spot prices on wholesale market
• Consumers without PV panels do not benefit from
the decentralization of the energy system
• Peer-to-peer electricity trading
• Prosumers sell electricity directly in
local community
• Consumers without PV panels may
benefit from buying local electricity
• Prices reflect availability of renewable
energy

7. Typical demand and solar production profile over the course of the day
7
Solar production
Consumption
Self-consumption
Import from grid
0 18126 24
Store / export to grid

8. In Quartierstrom, self-consumption is prioritized over trading in the
community; the grid serves as backup.
8
1
2
Meier family
Excess production is
offered for sale in
community
Utility company
3
Production that cannot
be sold locally is fed
into the grid

9. Field test: Walenstadt
Modern infrastructure and high prosumer ratio
9

10. The town of Walenstadt is located in the Swiss canton of St. Gallen.
10

11. 11
Innovative utility
company WEW
Existing prosumers
(31 of 37)
Modern billing
infrastrucutre Charging stations
close by
Existing storage
systems (9)
The pilot community already featured an innovative energy
infrastructure before we started the project.

12. The field phase of the project went live in January 2019
12
Dec
2018
Apr
2018
Participant
recruitment
Letter/Informal
meeting
Sep
2018
Installation of the
infrastructure &
Pre-experimental
survey
Mar
2020
Project end
Quartierstrom live
Participants interact with WebApp,
utility company uses Quartierstrom for
accounting
Dec
2019
End of the
field
experiment
Post-
experimental
survey
Start of the field
experiment
Montly reports, billing &
short surveys Integration of
community
battery
Jun
2019

13. Our system design
13

14. Quartierstrom is based on a private blockchain validated by the
producing participants of the system.
14
• Each consumption, production and storage point is represented by its own device and agent
• The producers (PV systems) have the authority to validate transactions and application execution
• Blockchain data is scraped and made available to the participants via a web interface
Market Application
Block
Explorer
J
S
J
S
J
S
J
S
J
S
Prosumer /
Validator
Consumer /
Client
Utility /
Validator
Smart Meter
Agent
Full /
Light Node
Application
Programming
Interface
Image: Arne Meeuw, Bosch IoT lab

15. The technical implementation in the participants’ homes turned out to
be rather challenging.
15
Modem SmartPI Device for data readout and
status checks
Remote monitoring of devices from
the office in Zurich

16. User interface: The Quartierstrom WebApp informs users about their
energy data.
16Image: Liliane Ableitner, Bits to Energy Lab, 2019

17. ...but users also have an active role: they can set price limits for buying and
selling local electricity.
17
User sets price
limits
Existing tariffs of
the utility provider
Image: Liliane Ableitner, Bits to Energy Lab, 2019

18. An auction mechanism determines who buys and sells electricity from
whom at which price.
18
Central optimization Auction Mechanism Bilateral negotiation
Central order book collects
supply, demand and price
preferences. Orders are
matched by auction mechanism

19. The auction mechanism computes trades based on the participants’
bids.
• Smart meters send bids containing electricity consumption/production each 15 minutes (ex post measurement)
• Prices in bids are determined by participants via graphical interface on web portal
Bid:
Bidder
Volume
Price limit
Bid:
Bidder
Volume
Price limit
Bid:
Bidder
Volume
Price limit
Bid:
Bidder
Volume
Price limit
Trade:
Buyer
Seller
Volume
Price per Unit
Bid:
Bidder
Volume
Price limit
Trade:
Buyer
Seller
Volume
Price per Unit
Trade:
Buyer
Seller
Volume
Price per Unit

20. Electricity is allocated using a double auction mechanism every 15
minutes.
• Smart meters submit bid with load
measured every 15 minutes
• Consumers define willingness to pay for
local electricity and prosumers minimum
price they ask for
• Time-discrete double auction with
discriminative pricing
• Auction is cleared every 15 minutes
20Image: Anselma Wörner, Bits to Energy Lab

21. Auction-based real-time prices in the community reflect the
availability of solar energy.
21Image: Anselma Wörner, Bits to Energy Lab

22. Substantial increase in self-sufficiency and self-consumption rate of
microgrid
22
Self-consumption
Where does the production go?
Self-sufficiency
Where does the electricity come from?

23. The peer-to-peer market almost doubled the share of electricity produced
(and consumed) locally.
Without Quartierstrom-system:
• Self-sufficiency:
19.3 %
• Self-consumption:
31.6 %
With Quartierstrom-System:
• Self-sufficiency:
35.9 %
• Self-consumption:
58.7 %
Quartierstrom data, Jan.-Oct. 2019:

24. Wrap up
24

25. Wrap up
• First blockchain-based local energy market (peer-to-peer exchange)
• Field experiment in pilot region with 37 participating households live since Jan 2019
• 75 “blockchain-enabled” smart-meters with software agent, client & nodes
• Double auction running on Tendermint BFT blockchain, cleared every 15 minutes
• Participants are more active on web portal than anticipated
• Self-consumption rate and self-sufficiency almost doubled
25

26. Thank you very much for listening!
Please visit our websites
www.quartier-strom.ch
www.bitstoenergy.com
26
Verena Tiefenbeck
ETH ZURICH
Scientific supervision
Anselma Wörner
ETH ZURICH
Market design
Arne Meeuw
UNIVERSITY OF ST. GALLEN
Development
Felix Wortmann
UNIVERSITY OF ST. GALLEN
Scientific supervision
Sandro Schopfer
ETH ZURICH
Project lead / development
Liliane Ableitner
ETH ZURICH
Frontend & user experience

27. 75% of the participants use the web app on a regular basis.
27