Pilot PXL Diepenbeek

Life as a prosumer: a live lab on energy trading

If you ever wonder how a real “blockchain for dummies” lab would look like, you must save the date for the Pilot in Diepenbeek! This pilot will approach the results of the research on the possibility of energy trading between prosumers from two angles: on one side the gamification will allow the player to understand what it means to be a prosumer; on the other side the VR visualisation will be a big asset in keeping the consumption under control and learning to recognize the best moment in which to trade your energy.

Gamification: Are you the ideal prosumer?

The easiest way to really understand what it means to be a prosumer and to be able to trade surplus energy with your neighbours is to try it out! That is why we put in place a gamification where “ideal prosumers” will be able to trade live energy in the most convenient way.

The students at PXL Diepenbeek Green and Tech’s department created 10 PLC boards displaying…an apartment! This will be your apartment and, as a player, you will be able to literally trade your surplus energy with your neighbour, live!

Blockchain4prosumers gamification boards made by students at PXL Green and Tech Diepenbeek
Are you the ideal prosumer? This is the question that lays under the rules of this big scale energy trading with blockchain game. How good will you trade your energy?

The VR visualisation: Take a walk in the Makerspace!

The Makerspace is the lab where the students of the Green and Tech’s department craft all kind of useful equipment for their studies. It’s here that the the PCL’s boards for the gamification of the energy trading have been created.

In this lab, our developers also installed some plugs in order to monitor the consumption of the different devices. The data gathered by the plugs are used to monitor the consumption of the whole lab on the Grafana dashboard with the same principle as for the Liège and Jülich’s pilot.

The difference is that in Diepenbeek, next to the visualisation on Grafana, you will be able to experience a Virtual Reality view of the consumption of the machines used in the lab. This kind of visualisation will take you on a real live tour of the Makerspace in Diebenbeek.

Thanks to the VR visualisation, the visitors will be able to take a live virtual tour of the Makerspace lab and see the consumption of the machinery used in the lab. Nice to know: the PCL boards used during the gamification are crafted in this very lab!

Visualisation is a crucial step in the setting of an energy trading because it gives the possibility to know how much energy you are actually using. If you are monitoring how much energy you are consuming, you will also be able to know when you will encounter a shortage, or a surplus, and trade the energy with your so-called neighbour.

Nice to know fact: May 9 is also Europe Day! This day celebrates peace and unity in Europe. The collaboration between each EU country is precious in order to preserve this status. By choosing this day, we want to mirror and celebrate the outstanding collaboration of 10 European partners in this Interreg Project!

Contact:
Wouter Meerten
wouter.meerten@pxl.be

Koen Gilissen
koen.gilissen@pxl.be