ECOLONG LLC — Department of Energy SBIR Phase I: 12c

Description

The confluence of rapidly growing in residential and commercial PV solar and new advancements in economically viable energy storage has led to the surging rise of individual energy prosumers (connected to the grid both producing and consuming electricity). This rise in distributed energy resources (DERs) or prosumers require new technologies to realize the potential values of DERs, such as increasing the reliability and resiliency of the electrical grid, making load more dynamic and responsive to wholesale market price signals, encouraging the use of more renewable energy, while improving overall system efficiencies. A promising solution is a transactional energy and control framework, wherein mutually-beneficial and cost-effective market transactions can be reached between multiple players across different domains. Specifically, peer-to-peer energy transaction technologies, such as Blockchain encoded smart contracts, allow participants (e.g., individual residences, commercial operators, DERs and their aggregators, or utilities) in the network to transact directly with other network participants without involving a third-party intermediary, reducing transmission time and costs. ecoLong proposes to develop an advanced peer-to- peer transactive energy platform with predictive optimization that bridge the gap from virtual to real world through relevant and game-changing technology. Our overarching goal is to develop a proof-of-concept prototype of the proposed platform. We will address our goal through the following objectives: (1) Integrating the weather/solar monitoring and forecasting agents; (2) Implementing predictive optimization; (3) Developing the blockchain based peer-to-peer transactive energy platform; and (4) Developing an energy pricing strategy.