How can I trade free network capacity with my neighbors in flexQgrid?
In flexQgrid, the secondary market comes into play during the yellow traffic light phase, which occurs as soon as a potential congestion is forecast. This offers all households, plants as well as storage facilities in the affected grid area (“cluster”) the possibility to trade on a virtual marketplace despite a restrictive quota and thus also to feed in or draw more power from the grid than the quota specifies.
Of course, no participant has to call his neighbor and say “I would have to charge my e-car, despite quota. Could you unplug your e-car for a moment so that mine can be charged?”. The secondary market runs fully automatically. Bids are submitted via the building energy management system (“GEMS”) with the help of artificial intelligence, stating, for example, that one participant would absolutely like to charge his e-car, but cannot do so due to the quota in place. If this participant indicates via his GEMS that he might even be willing to pay a little more to exceed the quota, his bid can be matched on the market with the bids of his neighbors. This way, a storage facility in the same cluster can store a little more and even get some money for it. Of course, the bids are generated fully automatically, sent to the market and matched there.
The secondary market
The secondary market thus auctions off the right to consume or generate more than one is actually allowed to do without unlawfully violating the quota. Thus, the danger of a shortage is eliminated.
The secondary market is based on the proven merit order principle. The market trades in 15 minute segments and is tested in the project in 2 versions. In the 1st embodiment, 1 market trading section is enabled before the quota takes effect, which is constant for 6 hours. This discrete market is replaced in the 2nd embodiment by a continuous market that trades every 15 minutes. In simulations, we have already shown that the welfare of the participating agents in the market can be increased by >= 10% through secondary trading. The matching of bids can be solved optimally within a few seconds with up to 100 market participants. The quotas, bids and market results as well as the entire process flow are stored on the blockchain in a transparent, non-discriminatory, securely encrypted and non-modifiable manner using specially developed smart contracts.
The interaction of the secondary market with the grid operator as well as the hardware and software equipment in flexQgrid thus creates a decentralized method a dynamic, flexible solution to forecast congestion. More information about the market mechanism as well as its characteristics will be available in a paper in summer, which is still in peer review. Stay tuned as we report more.
