The German team has begun work on a physical demonstrator in order to validate the core architecture of the local energy market. As outlined in the Vision section, each prosumer household is equipped with a smart meter, as well as an agent software and a blockchain client. The demonstrator will be composed of multiple households which integrate all necessary interfaces to enable secure data flow across all components. Thus, the feasibility of the proposed setup can be proven while at the same time, the software can be evaluated in a real environment.

In the planned setup, each household will be represented by an energy generating or consuming device, a smart meter, and a CPU. The latter will run both the behavior predicting agent, the Blockchain client which handles the submission of offers to the marketplace, as well as a Proof of Authority node. While the CPU will be realized via Raspberry Pis across all households, a variety of smart meters will be used. The demonstrator will be set up partly at FAPS’ Nuremberg  location, as well as at iba AG in Fuerth.

Besides the physical demonstrator, a virtual testing environment will also be realized in which prosumers are simulated based on real world data. This hybrid appraoch enables the validation of all aspects of the project results, namely the integration of physical components, such as smart meters, with blockchain infrastructure, as well as the market mechanism for low voltage networks.