Local Energy and Flexibility Markets: State of the art and technological gap analysis

Local Energy Markets (LEMs) and Local Flexibility Markets (LFMs) are going to have a key role in modern electrical grids as past problems or restrictions have been overcome and Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) can be managed more efficiently allowing the implementation of novel services to DSOs and other actors. This study provides a review of cutting-edge technologies and solutions for enabling the implementation of Local Energy Markets and Local Flexibility Markets. The State of the Art literature review that is presented, is focused on Local Flexibility Markets architecture, peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies for energy trading, and algorithmic approaches for flexibility estimation and optimization. Furthermore, a technological gap analysis was conducted in order to identify possible gaps in the implementation of P2P energy trading and LFM platforms. To this end, the state of various ongoing and recent projects and solutions was analysed in respect of six different indicators divided into sixteen sub-indicators. The results revealed a serious technological gap for four out of the six specified indicators.