Cutting out the middle-man’s profit from your electricity bill – peer to peer power

Impetus

A German company, Sonnen, (derived from Die Sonne, German for the sun) is rolling out a web based peer to peer green energy electricity exchange system. Eg if you have solar power or a wind turbine on your property, you can sell your surplus power over this peer-to-peer exchange – much like Skype operates for phone and video calls.

In Ireland retail power costs about 18c or more per kWh. The wholesale cost is typically in the 3 to 5c per kWh range*. You don’t have to have PV cells on your roof or a wind turbine to buy power over this exchange, anybody can join up and buy power direct from producers. Another aspect of the disintermediation trend rolling out over the internet. Other examples of disintermediation are peer to peer lending, Amazon.com, Skype, Bitcoin and Ether, AirBnB, Uber, eBay, Etsy …..

Watch the video on the Sonnen Community website (link below). This company also makes home battery storage systems for houses with PV cells or wind turbines – allowing them to store power. Tesla Motors also has a product for this market. Sonnen charge around EUR 6’000 for a typical energy storage battery suitable for home use. Store up power by day when there is sunlight, and discharge it over the evening/night. Or sell it over the grid to your ‘neighbours’.

Play video:

https://www.sonnenbatterie.de/en/sonnenCommunity

* http://smartgriddashboard.eirgrid.com/#all/market-pricing

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/peertopeer-p2p-service.asp

L

It's a good idea although it needs those exchanges to be paying for transmission/distribution costs or they'll be making electricity more expensive for everyone else.

ted1

Whole sale costs are often higher than 5c, they also exclude TUOS and DUOS charges. They also exclude staff costs etc and VAT. (That 18c is 14.8 c before VAT)

Impetus

L wrote: »

It's a good idea although it needs those exchanges to be paying for transmission/distribution costs or they'll be making electricity more expensive for everyone else.

1. It is up to Sonnen, and their competitors to register with the grid system, so that they accept financial responsibility for electricity consumed from the grid by Sonnen members.

2. The producers - be they someone with a PV cell system on the roof, or the farmer with one or two wind turbines, or a large solar or wind farm that wishes to bypass the big margin 'green energy suppliers', will have to get grid connectivity in the usual way. Which in Ireland is a very difficult task due to vested interests, corrupt administration, poor infrastructure, and other impediments. The producer will have a meter installed to show their output to the grid.

Sonnen is starting off in its home market, Germany, which has one of the highest solar fleets in the world, and there are wind turbines along virtually every Autobahn.

It would be nice if Ireland had some GW of HVDC connectivity to mainland Europe too so that energy producers in Ireland could sell into a broader market, and equally pure consumers could take advantage of the lowest available European prices. Not only is this an economic nice to have, it is vital for continuity of supply in a largely renewable environment.

Ireland has an ageing fleet of hydro carbon generation plant, which is coming up for renewal over the next 5 to 10 years. Similarly, France and Germany have age and or nuclear ban issues to be dealt with. There is no point in any state investing in the same old dirty 'crap' - be it carbon based, or nuclear with no long term provision for disposal and neutralization.

There is a huge and growing market for renewable energy Europe-wide. It seems to me that peer peer systems like that offered by Sonnen, offer the most competitive solution for both producers and consumers.

The biggest impediment is the paucity of grid resources both intra-state and inter-state. There is a huge market out there, waiting for a solution. Sonnen type peer to peer options will be part of that solution, in countries that don't systematically move to choke off the option.

http://www.engineersireland.ie/EngineersIreland/media/SiteMedia/communications/publications/engineers-ireland-state-of-ireland-2016.pdf?ext=.pdf

ted1

Work is currently ongoing with regards a French link HVDC link, similarly work is ongoing with the ISEM ( integrated market)

Impetus

Swissgrid has 10 GW of international links for a population of about 8 million.

Ireland had 0.5 GW of international links for about 4.5 million people.

Ireland needs much more than a 500 MW or 1GW DVDC link to Brittany.

German website on energy transition

http://energytransition.de/2015/08/switzerland-and-denmark-hubs-of-power-trading/

L

Well, as an island it's 1 GW (2X500MW interconnectors) rather than 0.5GW but you're right, more interconnection would be a good thing.

I'd argue that the Swiss numbers are difficult to compare directly though due to the difference both in distance their interconnectors have to cover and the difference in cost between a land interconnector and a sea one.

ted1

Impetus wrote: »

Swissgrid has 10 GW of international links for a population of about 8 million.

Ireland had 0.5 GW of international links for about 4.5 million people.

Ireland needs much more than a 500 MW or 1GW DVDC link to Brittany.

German website on energy transition

http://energytransition.de/2015/08/switzerland-and-denmark-hubs-of-power-trading/

Switzerland is surrounded by 5 various countries in the Alps where hydro offers great opportunity. Ireland is an island in the pheripal of Europe. What happens in Switzerland has no resemblance of what happens here