The participation of electric vehicles in a peer-to-peer energy-backed token market

Abstract

This paper designs a peer-to-peer (P2P) energy-backed token market for prosumers under blockchain technology. The prosumers in the presented market are classified into buyers and sellers based on their net generation. Another set of prosumers is electric vehicle (EV) owners that participate in the proposed energy token market via the storage capacity of their EVs. Using smart contracts, all market players can engage in bilateral (P2P) transactions of energy-backed tokens with other prosumers at the agreed price and with their existing market via real-time pricing. Furthermore, the buyers can participate in DR programs as virtual generators without the interference of a third party and shift their load based on their preferences to the hours with an abundant local generation or low market price. To avoid inflation and “false welfare” in the energy-backed token market, this paper applies a demurrage mechanism to lower the redemption value of energy tokens. With this mechanism in place, the buyers and sellers try to minimize the time interval between token purchase and consumption and between token generation and selling. A decentralized alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) scheme is developed to clear the proposed fully-decentralized energy-backed token market in the presence of EVs and the demurrage mechanism. This approach protects the players’ privacy while ensuring solution feasibility. The simulation results suggest that the presence of EVs enhances the freedom of the prosumers in choosing their energy peers and increases their total welfare by 20 percent.