Neighbor to neighbor Solar Trading Lifts Returns and illuminates the tension on the schedule
Australian researchers report that households can earn more by selling surplus PV on the roof directly to nearby buyers via Peer -To -Peer -Energy parts, prices between feeds and retail rates, while the local gridstress is illuminated.
Around 25 million households today use solar energy, with 100 million predictions by 2030. In 2024, an estimated 597 GW of solar capacity was installed worldwide, an increase of 33 percent at 2023.
Australia leads on adoption, with panels on almost 40 percent of the houses, or around 4.1 million roofs. Heavy afternoon surplus has pressed depressive feed in rates, which has given questions about value. A recent federal program has reserved 2.3 billion AUD for home batteries, but new modeling only finds storage does not always pay.
Researchers from the University of South Australia and Deakin University analyzed four setups with 12 months of real data from a 10 kW solar house in Geelong and three neighboring consumers: Peer -To -grid export, pear to grid with batteries, peer -To -Peer sharing and pear to pear with batteries.
“Under the current conditions in Victoria, the tariff feed is less than 5 cents per kilowatt hour, while the selling price is around 28 cents. Selling excess PV energy directly to neighbors at a mutually agreed price in between can be more profitable for solar residents and still cheaper for buyers,” says Dr Wang.
Local P2P parts also stabilizes supply and demand by reducing exports to a network that is mainly designed to distribute the electricity in one way instead of receiving it.
The results showed that adding a 5 kW -battery self -consumption to 22 percent increased and reduced the import, but did not bring a profit for the host and did not offer any benefit to the neighbor, given the previous costs. Without batteries or P2P, the host exported nearly 12,800 kWh per year and only consumed 14.6 percent.
Under P2P with a 5 kWh battery, self -consumption rose to almost 38 percent, although there was less surplus for neighbors because it was priority. Neighbors participating in P2P use of electricity use with more than 30 percent.
Retention depended on the correct size. The shortest payback time, 12 years, came with a 7.5 kWh battery in the P2P model.
“Our modeling showed that under the current conditions P2P energy parts in combination with a 10kWh battery could yield the highest efficiency -$ 4929 -for solar owners more than 20 years,” says Dr. Cheek.
“On the other hand, all Peer -To -grid scenarios resulted in a negative return during the same period as a result of low food in rates and high battery costs.
“Battery size turned out to be critical. Systems with oversized batteries saw returns due to higher capital and maintenance costs and reduced surplus energy.”
Co -author Professor Chunlu Liu says there is a trade -off between private storage and community advantage: “When batteries are used, they will benefit the solar owner by reducing their grid education, but this can limit the amount of energy that is shared with neighbors because they are fully loaded before a Surplus energy is shared.
The team adds that heat pumps and thermal storage can absorb surplus PV to further increase self -use. With the leading penetration on the roof of Australia, scaled P2P models can illuminate the grid pressure and improve the solar economy at home.
“Our analysis shows that if P2P prices for sharing energy enforcement are set between feed in rate and shopping rates, both sellers and buyers can get ahead,” said Professor Mark Luther, the co -author. “But market rules and technical systems must support these transactions on a scale.”
Research report:Technical and economic analyzes of grid-connected residential PV with batteries and peer-to-peer energy sharing
