## 2 Local Energy Markets
### LEM Market Platforms and Projects  
Recently, a significant number of projects have been initiated to effectively harness the true potential of the LEM. German companies such as Lumenaza GmbH and Sonnen GmbH pioneered concepts allowing locally produced energy to be bought and sold at the residential level, empowering market players to actively and decisively manage their energy procurement. The introduction of BCT has further enhanced this potential, enabling real-time market platforms without the need for a central intermediary. As an emerging technology, BCT offers new prospects for decentralized markets, allowing energy consumers to make informed decisions regarding energy trades and transactions based on accurate information and predictive analytics to maximize rewards. In this work, LEM projects are categorized into two domains: real-time BCT projects (aggregator platforms) and local market flexibility projects (market platforms). Table 2 summarizes the LEM platforms and projects, and a few selected projects from both real-time aggregator platforms and local market flexibility platforms are briefly discussed. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{p{42.7 pt} p{42.7 pt} p{42.7 pt} p{42.7 pt} p{42.7 pt} p{42.7 pt} p{42.7 pt} p{42.7 pt}} \hline \hline
**LEM Projects** & **Market Platforms** & **Ownership** & **Stakeholder Countries** & **Period** & **Services** & **Time Frame** & **Market Mechanism** & **Pricing Mechanism** \\ \hline \hline \multirow{8}{*}{**Category**} & Brooklyn & & & & Technical infrastructure, load-balancing & & & \\  & Microgrid [60] & LOS Energy & NYC, USA & 2016 & & Technical load-balancing & & \\ \cline{1-1}  & Quartierstrom Community & & & & & & \\ \cline{1-1}  & Microgrid & Swiss Federal Office of Energy & Walenstadt, Switzerland & 2019-2020 & Flexible local traffic balancing & & & \\ \cline{1-1}  & LAMP [62] & IISM & Landau, Germany & 2017-2019 & Active participation, price preferences & & & Double auction & \\ \cline{1-1}  & Equigy [63] & Swissgrid, TenneT NL, and Terna & Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands & 2020-2021 & Aggregators balancing services & & & \\ \cline{1-1}  & Tiko [64] & TIKO & Austria, Belgium, France & 2014-to & Load-balancing services & & & Market rules of TSO-balancing services & \\ \cline{1-1}  & & & & & & & & \\ \cline{1-1}  & & & & & & & & \\ \cline{1-1}  & & & & & & & & \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: LEM market projects and platforms at global level. The Brooklyn Microgrid Project [76] was the first worldwide real-time BCT-enabled LEM network based on a virtual community and physical microgrid platform. The virtual community platform deals with the technical infrastructure using BCT and a physical microgrid platform for load-balancing services, as it is uncoupled from the traditional grid operated by ISO to aggregate the demand and supply and balance the loads through DSO. The Quartierstrom community microgrid project [77] stands as a tangible instance of a prosumer-centric LEM implemented in Walenstadt, Switzerland, utilizing a BCT-based P2P approach. This initiative involved the active participation of 37 households, with 25 of them classified as consumers and the remaining 12 as prosumers equipped with ESSs. In this project, community members with the same voltage or grid level were offered a reduced tariff for grid usage. The Landau Microgrid Project (LAMP) [78] represents a practical example of an LEM in action, involving the participation of 20 household residents in Landau, Germany. This project was designed to scrutinize the energy consumption behavior, acceptance, and engagement of German households in an LEM facilitated by blockchain technology. LAMP offers market participants the opportunity to purchase locally generated  
\begin{table}
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electricity at prices aligned with their own valuation.