Bidirectional DC Energy Meter for Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading and Smart Metering

In most areas of South Africa, there is great potential for solar energy and a need for sustainable and affordable energy as the primary supplier of electrical energy from the national grid fails to meet consumers’ demand. Solar-powered homes and microgrids with the provision of peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading can be an effective solution to this, but the installation of such systems can be costly at the initial stage. The literature study shows that bidirectional direct current (DC) energy meters with various functionalities do exist in the market, but they are usually expensive and have more functionalities than are needed to solve the specific problem of shared P2P energy measurement and trading, especially among low-income households. In this paper, an affordable bidirectional energy meter was built to measure the DC energy that is shared within a solar-powered microgrid. This DC energy meter allows prosumers to monitor their energy buying and selling activities profitably. The prototype of the bidirectional DC energy meter for P2P energy trading built and presented in this paper would save the owners 52.5% purchasing cost compared to the commercially available brands in the market thereby making it affordable for low-income prosumer households. Also, the device has an accuracy of 98.8% in energy measurements making its readings reliable for good energy trading decisions by prosumers.