Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading using distributed battery storage in Japanese households could be a scalable business once prohibitive rules change in a couple of years’ time, a provider of renewable energy equipment in the country has said.

Energy trading firm Power Ledger’s peer-to-peer (P2P) technology is integrated from the design conception stage of a new property development in Australia.

Assets are up for sale following the bankruptcy of EnSync, a networked smart home solutions provider from the US which has been using battery energy storage to aggregate connected systems for energy trading and other services.

Consumers in a South London housing estate will soon be able to trade solar power amongst themselves as an blockchain-enabled pilot project backed by EDF gets underway.

Following news yesterday of the first grid-scale solar-plus-storage system on the Hawaiian island of Molokai, two more modestly-sized projects show the potential diversity of applications for energy storage in the US state.

Cheap solar electricity will be traded between neighbouring residents in apartment blocks in Western Australia, enabling peer-to-peer trading of electricity in a project supported by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

Germany’s sonnen introduced a scheme a while back in which customers pay a flat, reduced rate for their electricity each month while the company aggregate their batteries together to benefit the grid – and now the offer has been extended to electric vehicle owners.

GE’s investment in Sonnen shows a shared belief in online trading of energy and other digitally-enabled services as the fastest potential drivers of a profitable energy storage industry, according to a Sonnen director.