PowerShare 2.0: A Gamified P2P Energy Trading Platform

Abstract

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) energy trading has emerged as the next-generation energy management mechanism that enables energy consumers and prosumers -- i.e., households that function as both energy producers and consumers - to exchange energy directly with each other. The full development of such a decentralized energy market poses several challenges to the HCI community, especially when it comes to motivating energy users to cooperate with utilities to provide ancillary services that would improve the distribution system as a whole. How to foster this complex cooperation mechanism and ensure participation is still an open research question. Drawing on results from a previous study, we have identified a set of relevant theories and design concepts - namely, Collective Efficacy, Norm Activation Model, and Gamification - that could help answer that question. In this article, we present PowerShare 2.0, a gamified P2P energy trading platform designed based on such concepts and report the initial feedback collected during a preliminary study with both consumers and prosumers.