By 2030, nearly half of UK electricity capacity will come from local solar and wind plants, much of it traded directly between households and businesses who both produce and consume energy. The Liverpool Multi-vector Energy Exchange (LMEX) will produce a detailed design for a city-wide smart energy system that coordinates this shift. Today’s grid cannot handle millions of small-scale generators, electric vehicle chargers, heat pumps, and hydrogen producers trading power among themselves without overloading the network. LMEX solves this with two first-of-a-kind layers: a Smart Network Controller that manages thousands of local energy assets in real time, and a Flexibility Exchange Platform where prosumers trade peer-to-peer automatically, without third parties, while ensuring the system stays within safe technical limits. If successful, the design could unlock cheaper local energy, lower household bills, reduced grid congestion, new revenue streams for participants, and cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The project is commercially driven R&D, building on proven smart-grid experience but scaling it far beyond anything operating today.
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A major theme of the UK's low-carbon energy transition is the **rise of the consumer**. No longer just energy buyers on the end of power lines, we can send energy services "back up the wire", reduce costs and generate new revenues in a new, consumer-centric energy world. In 2030, local power plants (mostly solar and wind) will comprise nearly half of UK capacity, up from a quarter in 2018\. Much will be traded peer-to-peer by a new class of energy "prosumers" offering a range of clean energy services locally, and to the grid operators. The **Liverpool Multi-vector Energy Exchange** (LMEX) will create a detailed design for a city-wide, smart local energy system that will greatly facilitate clean energy, electric vehicles, and low-carbon heating and cooling. Our design will open the door to a host of innovative technologies including EV charging; heat networks with ground / water / air source heat pumps; solar-powered hydrogen production to replace gas supply and power fuel cells; battery and REDOX based energy storage; and a host of flexible demand approaches. LMEX comprises two critical layers -- both first-of-a-kind. The first is hardware: a **Smart Network Controller** with capabilities far beyond the present market, to communicate with, control and optimise in real-time myriad local energy assets. The second is software-based: the **Flexibility Exchange Platform** (FXP), through which prosumers will trade peer-to-peer with full transparency, automatic matching, and without third-party intervention. FXP will be grafted on to the control layer so that a) all buy and sell transactions can be honoured; and b) the technical limits of the system cannot be stressed/violated. LMEX Project is about **commercially-driven R&D**. It benefits from real-world track record in developing smart energy networks, though the city-wide scale envisaged here is far greater than anything in the energy world today. LMEX is about tangible benefit to prosumers and energy system operators: * New flexibility players: all sizes, user-types and technologies able to trade clean, flexible energy services across power, heat and cool, and transport. * More, cheaper, locally produced energy for lower consumer bills. * Reduced import from the grid for reduced network losses and avoidance of network reinforcement and associated disruptions. * More clean energy, leading to improved local air quality, and reduced emissions of greenhouse gases. * New revenue streams: access for participants to a widening spread of local and national energy market segments, in which new revenues streams are emerging steadily.
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