A “community platform operator” can be part of the community by offering and operating a platform that allows the coordination between various community members on a day-to-day basis. The platform operator can, for instance, provide a peer-to-peer trading platform, manage an aggregation business, or facilitate the interaction between the community members and external partners (e.g., grid operator). In their activities, community platform operators focus on connecting the members and providing a suited ICT infrastructure (in contrast to generation infrastructure). By doing the community platform operators they provide a service to the community.

Implementation reference

• Energy platform for 100% sustainable energy (Vandebron)
• Use green energy from the community (Sonnen Community, Som Energia, Quartierstrom  project)
• Energy management and virtual power plant (FlecoPower, Tiko, Cut Energy)
• Blockchain-based flexibility trading platform operator (Equigy)

Research reference

• Kubli & Canzi (2021): Flexibility aggregator
• Ableitner et al. (2019): Quartierstrom App based on blockchain

This pattern belongs to the core area: Energy Community Members