In Vienna’s “Viertel Zwei” urban development area, Wien Energie and Vienna Marketing & Energycontracting (VMEC) are trialling smart approaches for the energy world of the future together with local residents. Pilot customers not only get access to innovative products and services, but can also actively shape the new offers. Energy is the issue at the heart of the “Urban Pioneers Community” and “Energy Community Advanced” projects. Mobility, telecommunications and smart-living applications are also being studied alongside electricity and heat. An important focus is on testing new pilot tariffs for electricity that were developed in co-creation workshops.
With the “Pioneers Tariff”, all participants were assigned a share of the production from the local PV facility and a P2P feature was used to divide up and charge for the electricity with the aid of blockchain technology. Combined with a district storage system, this is intended to maximise the percentage of PV power used locally. The idea is based on the “P2PQ – Peer2Peer im Quartier” research project, which Wien Energie ran in partnership with AIT Austrian Institute of Technology and Riddle&Code.1
Peer2Peer im Quartier (P2PQ)
As part of the P2PQ project blockchain-based applications for local energy communities were developed. The blockchain technology (Riddle&Code) allows locally generated PV power to be divided up amongst residents of a housing complex or district in the best possible way as well as guaranteeing data security and confidential billing on a prosumer platform. The proof of concept of these innovative solutions was provided in “Viertel Zwei”. The blockchain-based PV facility on the roof of the building complex allows residents to trade the electricity they generate themselves, share it or sell it on to other members of the community. Consumption is monitored and tariffs managed via an easy-to-use online platform. Using a predictive optimisation tool (developed at AIT), the locally produced PV power can be stored efficiently in a battery and released to or traded amongst residents depending on anticipated demand. To get an overview of the generated transactions and electricity consumption and production, a user-friendly web application has been developed that presents the complex blockchain data in simple graphs.
The smart network of utility company, infrastructure and consumers is laying the foundations for creating one of the first P2P energy trading communities in Europe. Alongside the advances in technology, new business models and key factors for the economic efficiency of the innovative solutions have also been identified.
nachhaltigwirtschaften.at/de/sdz/projekte/peer2peer-im-quartier.php
1 Project partners: Wien Energie GmbH (project management), AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH, Riddle&Code GmbH
