Toyota will bring together businesses, homeowners, and electric vehicle drivers in a pilot blockchain-bases peer-to-peer energy-trading system.
According to Toyota, Japan is undergoing a transition, “shifting from a traditional, large-scale, consolidated system to a distributed system in which individuals and businesses own their own power supply”. The pilot is set to run for 11 months, starting in Jun 2019 and brings together several exponential technologies.
A blockchain will provide the immutable record-keeping, AI will drive the “electricity trading agent” that manages the real-time supply and demand forecasting and pricing, and distributed solar and storage, as well as EVs, will connect to exchange energy.
Toyota said “The objective of the new test is to verify the economic advantage of having ‘prosumers’ – electricity consumers who are also energy producers using self-owned generating equipment. It will also assess the feasibility of a two-way, self-autonomous electricity supply system that allows direct trading with other prosumers.”
