A Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading System Considering Participants’ Social Relationships and Multi-class Preferences

Widespread deployment of distributed renewable energy sources drives the emergence of the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) energy trading paradigm, which refers to the scenario that energy entities in low-voltage distribution networks trade energy with each other. This paper presents a new system that facilitates P2P energy trading based on both the economic profit/cost and non-economic considerations of the participants. The latter includes the social relationships among the participants and their multi-class energy trading preferences, which are represented by a social network model. Based on this, bidding strategies and market operation mechanisms are developed to support the formation of P2P energy trading transactions. Simulation based on the real-world social media data is conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed system.