Towards collective energy Community: Potential roles of microgrid and blockchain to go beyond P2P energy trading

Decarbonisation of energy sector is crucial to deliver the future net zero energy system with promoting and facilitating the large-scale electrification of end-user sectors. It is necessary to provide sustainable, cost-effective, resilient and scalable energy solutions to exploit the power of citizens to contribute to the clean energy transition, increasing the flexibility of the overall energy system. Energy community, as the new actor, create an integrated pan energy market by bringing together the local consumers and energy market players. However, diversity of energy community brings huge challenges in integration of decentralized renewables with regulated framework, interaction of decentralized marketplaces, as well as interoperability of the cross-border energy sectors with privacy, security and incentives. This paper intends to provide an in-depth investigation on the role of microgrid and blockchain, alone and together, in facilitating the energy community as the “enabling framework” to boost the potential solutions of electrification in the transportation, building, and industrial sectors, as well as rural/remote areas and islands towards a networking green ecosystem. This paper serves as a comprehensive reference to understand the modern microgrid on its control and communication technology with integration of blockchain services in promoting the techno-socio-economic innovations for the restructuring of the sustainable energy supply chain.