Blockchain-based democratic power sharing in building-scale energy communities

The ongoing energy transition pathway from a fossil-based to an environmentally friendly zero-carbon energy sector passes through decarbonization, decentralization, and digitalization. The increasing digitalization empowers several key opportunities for consumers' involvement and engagement in modern peer-to-peer interactive energy communities. Among them, blockchain technology is a timely innovation that is very promising. This paper explores the potential of a recently proposed power-sharing model suitable for building-scale energy communities and blockchain-based management to foster democratic perceptions and social acceptance in non-trusting end-users. Energy communities also benefit distributors in terms of increased demand flexibility, which can result in new methodologies for managing networks and increasing the hosting capacity of networks. The relationship between individual end-users in a community and among them and the distributor are crucial aspects.