Energy Highway: A Community-Centric Approach for Decentralized Green Energy Exchange and Self-Sufficiency

The rise of distributed energy sources (DERs) has reshaped the dynamics of the energy market, leading to several intriguing research works on community-based energy exchanges. However, implementations of energy-sharing methods remain sparse in the existing literature. We propose a practical application of sharing model named as energy highway that allows community prosumers to trade green energy via existing grid infrastructure. To improve the system's integrity and transparency, we propose the use of blockchain and IoT devices to authenticate all green energy produced by prosumers. The billing structure of all valid energy transactions are computed by the grid service operator (GSO) via cloud services. Moreover, we have proposed a mechanism employing smart meters to monitor energy for each household. All houses engaging in the community's peer-to-peer (P2P) trading scheme receive financial advantages. We propose incentives to promote green energy exchanges within the community that not only spurs the adoption of more renewable systems but also boost interest in P2P energy exchange. Our ultimate goal is for a community to be self-sufficient through the independent generation and utilization of green energy, minimizing the dependence on external grid energy supply.