Community energy retail tariffs in Singapore: opportunities for peer-to-peer and time-of-use versus vertically integrated tariffs

Abstract

The deregulation of Singapore’s retail electricity market in 2018 and the rapid adoption of solar rooftops have led to the emergence of a new type of energy transaction, wherein prosumers require flexible tariffs that reflect their willingness to respond to market price signals as well as new business models. The move toward community energy schemes, where prosumers can trade their surplus electricity locally, and the implications this has for tariff design motivates our study. We propose a portfolio of stylized retail tariffs for different market organizations. Among the proposed configurations are time-of-use (ToU), default vertical and peer-to-peer (P2P) tariffs, the last of which operates through a blockchain platform. In this study, each Singaporean district is balanced as a potential future microgrid. An iterative double-auction mechanism is designed to calculate a distributed P2P tariff, looking to maximize the benefit for stakeholders. This tariff is then cleared and compared with a bespoke retail ToU tariff as well as Singapore’s monopolistic regulated vertical tariff.