Making Local Energy Sharing Real
When energy communities share and trade energy locally, the promise is huge: more renewable use, lower bills, stronger local control, and new flexibility for the grid. But making that promise real takes more than good intentions or clever software. It takes regulation that works on the ground, market models that are fair and grid-supporting, tools people can actually use, and privacy-safe digital infrastructure.
That was the focus of U2Demo’s special session at IEEE PES ISGT Europe 2025:
“Local Energy Exchange and Peer-to-Peer Trading for Empowering Energy Communities and Delivering Flexibility Services: Trading Models, Privacy-Preserving Algorithms, and Decision Support Tools.”
The session brought together U2Demo partners and external experts to show how these pieces fit into one coherent system — and what still needs to happen next.
What the session tackled
Across the talks and discussion, the session zoomed in on one practical question:
How do we scale peer-to-peer energy sharing in a way that people trust, grids can handle, and law can support?
The answer that emerged was clear: energy communities only grow when legal, technical, market, and human realities are designed together.
Speakers and their focus
- Lucila de Almeida (EUI / Florence School of Regulation)
Showed how EU rules can drive innovation — but only if Member States transpose them into clear, workable national frameworks that communities can rely on. - Anibal Sanjab (VITO / EnergyVille)
Presented grid-supporting P2P trading models designed to balance community benefit with system stability. - Hugo Morais (INESC-ID / University of Lisbon)
Highlighted decision-support and energy management tools that reduce complexity for households and make participation realistic. - Geert Deconinck (KU Leuven / EnergyVille)
Explained privacy-preserving flexibility aggregation so communities can offer flexibility without exposing personal data. - Mustafa A. Mustafa (University of Manchester)
Argued for secure, distributed architectures (including cryptography and blockchain settlement) to build trust in P2P markets.
Key lessons learned
1) Regulation is part of the infrastructure
A major insight, emphasised by Lucila de Almeida, is that regulation isn’t a brake on innovation. Done well, it’s a driver. But legal support has to translate into everyday clarity: contracts, consumer rights, liability rules, and market integrity that households and communities can understand and trust.
Takeaway: If the legal “plumbing” is unclear, technical platforms won’t scale — no matter how advanced they are.
2) Local markets must help the grid, not fight it
P2P trading can’t be built as a closed bubble. As Sanjab showed, good models reward behaviour that supports the grid: shifting demand, smoothing peaks, and enabling flexibility.
Takeaway: A scalable energy community market is one that improves system stability as it grows.
3) Usability beats optimisation
Morais made the everyday reality visible: households don’t want to run a mini-electricity market in their heads. Communities need tools that learn patterns, suggest good actions, and automate where possible.
Takeaway: Participation rises when trading feels simple and low-effort.
4) Privacy and security are prerequisites
Deconinck and Mustafa made a shared point from different angles: people will not join local energy markets if participation means revealing detailed personal consumption behaviour or trusting a black-box intermediary.
Takeaway: Privacy-preserving, secure-by-design systems are not optional add-ons — they are what makes trust possible at all.
5) Real behaviour must shape design
Kazempour’s contribution added the final grounding layer: even the best market design fails if it assumes idealised prosumers. Incentives, defaults, and tools must fit real participation patterns.
Takeaway: Scaling depends on markets built for humans, not for theoretical “perfect users.”
Implications beyond the room
This session showed U2Demo’s core strength in action: connecting disciplines that are usually siloed. Peer-to-peer energy sharing is no longer a futuristic concept. The building blocks exist — legal frameworks, trading models, decision tools, and secure architectures — but they have to be assembled as one integrated solution.
Energy communities will spread fastest where:
- the law gives clear rights and protections,
- markets reward grid-supporting behaviour,
- tools make participation easy,
- and privacy is protected by default.
That is exactly the pathway U2Demo is building towards through open-source, interoperable solutions that energy communities across Europe can adopt and adapt.
A note of thanks
Thank you to the session chairs Anibal Sanjab and Hugo Morais, to all speakers for their sharp and generous contributions, and to the IEEE PES ISGT Europe audience for the engaged discussion. The feedback and questions from this session will directly inform U2Demo’s next steps as the project continues to turn research and regulation into tools that communities can truly use.
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