Barriers to Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading Networks: A Multi-Dimensional PESTLE Analysis

Zheyuan Sun, Sara Tavakoli, Kaveh Khalilpour (), Alexey Voinov and Jonathan Paul Marshall
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Zheyuan Sun: Faculty of Engineering & IT, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia
Sara Tavakoli: Faculty of Engineering & IT, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia
Kaveh Khalilpour: Faculty of Engineering & IT, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia
Alexey Voinov: Faculty of Engineering Technology, University of Twente, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands
Jonathan Paul Marshall: Faculty of Art and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 4, 1-23

Abstract: The growing adoption of distributed energy production technologies and the potential for energy underutilisation when the energy is produced by non-connected groups has raised interest in developing ‘sharing economy’ concepts in the electricity sector. We suggest that mechanisms, such as peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading, will allow users to exchange their surplus energy for mutual benefits, stimulate the adoption of renewable energy, encourage communities to ‘democratically’ control their own energy supplies for local development, improve energy efficiency, and create many other benefits This approach is receiving increasing attention across the world, particularly in Germany, the Netherlands and Australia. Nevertheless, the actual development and implementation of these platforms are slow and mostly limited to trial activities. This study investigates the challenges and barriers facing P2P energy trading developments based on previous academic and industry studies. We provide a comprehensive multidimensional barrier analysis through a PESTLE approach to assess the barriers from a variety of perspectives, including the political (P), economic (E), social (S), technological (T), legal (L), and environmental (E) aspects. This approach clarifies the many intersecting problem fields for P2P trading in renewable energy, and the paper identifies a list of such barriers and discusses the prospects for addressing these issues. We also elaborate on the importance of incentive-based P2P market design.

Keywords: community energy; energy sharing; barrier analysis; tragedy of commons; free rider effect; incentive (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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