An article by Emma Young in the West Australia newspaper WA Today, caught our eye. It reports on a trial in Perth where people with solar panels can sell their excess power to each other but not back to the grid.
The article below is from this original article where you can also listen to the interview:
World-first trial lets WA residents sell their own excess solar power
The technology behind virtual currency ‘bitcoin’ has enabled Perth to launch a world-first trial to let people with solar panels sell their excess electricity to each other, not back to the grid.
Jemma Green, Research Fellow at Curtin University’s Sustainability Policy Institute, is chairwoman of start-up Power Ledger, whose eight-week ‘virtual’ trial underway at National Lifestyle Villages in Busselton.
Jemma Green explains the peer to peer solar trading trail which has kicked off in Perth.
\’Blockchain\’ software will show residents of 10 homes what would happen if they were to trade their electricity with their neighbours, how much they would make and how it would work.
A similar virtual trial is being conducted in New York, but the company’s imminent ‘real’ trial with 80 homes in a second South West location, actually doing the transactions and moving the electricity, will be a world first, Ms Green says.
The trial will allow residents to trade their electricity with their neighbours.
Ms Green said more than 22 per cent of Perth and South West homes now had solar panels and the trial was a natural extension for a marketplace clearly hungry for solar and battery technology.
“When Tesla announced its power wall battery on April 30 last year it had $800 million in pre-orders in the first week,” she said.
“As prices come down we will see mainstream takeup, the research suggests.
“It’s clear people want control of their electricity and to commercialise it how they see fit.”
