Impact of local electricity markets and peer-to-peer trading on low-voltage grid operations

Abstract

Local electricity markets based on peer-to-peer (P2P) trading schemes have emerged as an innovative mechanism to sell electricity from prosumer to consumer, to utilise efficiently and value local flexibility, and to support grid management. In this paper, we analyse a local market applied to a real-life neighbourhood of 52 households in Norway. As prosumers and consumers trade within this community, we analyse the value of P2P trading compared to cases where no local markets are available, along with the impact of PV, batteries and EVs deployment. As these technologies and local trading interactions might create challenges to the physical operations of the grid, we analyse the effect on power flows, voltage variations and system losses. The main findings indicate that there are no significant impacts on the grid operation of the P2P market when only PVs are installed in the system. With decentralised batteries available, the P2P trade induced more voltage fluctuations and 14 % more losses within the neighbourhood than the case with no local market. However, the local market brings overall savings for the end-user and sets the frame to design pricing schemes (e.g. manage losses) that are tailored to support DSO operations.