Peer-to-Peer Shareholding Strategy for Distributed Photovoltaic Systems to Curb Energy Poverty

The use of distributed photovoltaic (PV) for energy sharing is a promising solution to curb energy poverty. However, due to financial barriers, spatial issues, and regulation challenges, energy sharing potentials for devising an energy supply alternative are yet to be manifested and implemented in practice. In this paper, we propose an equitable energy sharing model for effective hardware sharing in which residential users engage the on-demand PV hardware through shareholding transfers, and the energy generated by shared PV is shared via peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions and local microgrid markets. A coordinated optimization model, which considers both energy and economic benefits, is proposed for maximizing the residential user's profits. The numerical simulation results based on the IEEE 33-bus system demonstrate that the proposed mechanism can increase the overall PV utilization by 15% and lower the residential user's daily average energy cost by 40%.