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Consumer Demand for Blockchain-Enabled Peer-to-Peer Electricity Trading in the United Kingdom: An online survey experiment

Fell, MJ; Schneiders, A; Shipworth, D; (2019) Consumer Demand for Blockchain-Enabled Peer-to-Peer Electricity Trading in the United Kingdom: An online survey experiment. Energies , 12 (20) , Article 3913. 10.3390/en12203913. Green open access

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Abstract

Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading could help address grid management challenges in a decentralizing electricity system, as well as provide other social and environmental benefits. Many existing and proposed trading schemes are enabled by blockchain, a distributed ledger technology (DLT) relying on cryptographic proof of ownership rather than human intermediaries to establish energy transactions. This study used an online survey experiment (n = 2064) to investigate how consumer demand for blockchain-enabled peer-to-peer energy trading schemes in the United Kingdom varies depending on how the consumer proposition is designed and communicated. The analysis provides some evidence of a preference for schemes offering to meet a higher proportion of participants’ energy needs and for those operating at the city/region (as compared to national or neighbourhood) level. People were more likely to say they would participate when the scheme was framed as being run by their local council, followed by an energy supplier, community energy organization, and social media company. Anonymity was the most valued DLT characteristic and mentioning blockchain’s association with Bitcoin led to a substantial decrease in intended uptake. We highlight a range of important questions and implications suggested by these findings for the introduction and operation of P2P trading schemes.

Type: Article
Title: Consumer Demand for Blockchain-Enabled Peer-to-Peer Electricity Trading in the United Kingdom: An online survey experiment
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.3390/en12203913
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.3390/en12203913
Language: English
Additional information: © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: peer-to-peer energy trading; consumer demand; distributed ledger technology; blockchain; online survey experiment
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Bartlett School Env, Energy and Resources
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10083157
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