ENHANCING SCALABILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY IN ENERGY AND CARBON MARKETS: A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE ALGORAND-BLOCKCHAIN IN P2P TRADING FRAMEWORK

Local energy and carbon markets created on private or legacy blockchains suffer from limited throughput, high costs, and fragmented settlement, hindering the expansion of household-level peer-to-peer (P2P) trade. This study investigates whether a public, high-throughput blockchain can support real-time, cooperative carbon and energy trade at the local level. The "blockchain trilemma," a three-way trade-off among decentralization, security, and transaction throughput, inhibits reliable, affordable trading until transaction volumes reach the scale of hundreds of smart meters. This raises the question of whether an automated auction contract, in conjunction with a Pure Proof-of-Stake public ledger, can eliminate this barrier and enforce carbon allowance compliance. This study integrates real-time carbon validation and physical power transfer into a single Algorand smart contract, unlike previous research that treated energy and carbon-credit trading separately. Using the same feeder model, it compares results against both non-blockchain and traditional blockchain benchmarks. A standardized three (3)-layer architecture comprises the Algorand ledger, prosumer/microgrid transaction logic, and a timescheduled dual-auction smart contract in PyTEAL. The architecture was simulated in MATLAB R2021a on a modified IEEE 37-bus feeder with five microgrids. The simulation used UK residential demand (EFERGY) and solar/wind generation profiles over a 24-hour, 48-slot period. The proposed framework achieved a daily energy balance of 0.99 kWh, reduced carbon emissions by 1,485.90 g/day, and supported over 1,000 transactions per second with sub-5- second latency and micro-cent costs. It combines Algorand's Pure Proof-of-Stake with a carbonaware double-auction contract to enhance P2P energy trading.