Could a smart electrical grid be made open and accessible for free trade and competition at the individual level?

The posts about smart meters got me thinking about an idea I had a while ago (I wanted to study the feasibility in-depth for a research paper competition, but I got very busy and never got back to the idea).

TL;DR: Electricity Stock Market

Could improvements to the electrical grid including more advanced monitoring, routing, and networking allow for a free energy market to exist within the electrical grid?

Would it be possible for every solar panel, wind turbine, etc. to be manufactured with a universally recognizable identification that can be registered with the owner at purchase so that when it is installed in any physical location on the grid (even in isolated portions), it is recognized with a virtual address that can be accessed by the owner through a market interface (much like the more complex broker interfaces used to manage and exchange stocks and other market goods).

It's obviously more complicated than routing signals, but the transaction can still be made between two individuals with the system calculating the effect of the source on the grid and the expected result at the end and provide that information for sales agreements. I'm not sure whether it would be better to attempt to calculate the power drop across a distance, or work out an agreement where the primary utility power is reinforced in one area in exchange for selling an equivalent amount of primary utility power to another area.

The identification could include and route through third-party storage (e.g. a company collects power at peak production and disperses it at peak demand in order to maximize profits for the third-party, and provide the primary utility with more stable production expectations to reduce cycling of supplementary power capacity) and third-party collection/distribution (e.g. a company with available land in a high production location can provide a signal that meets transmission standards with a scalable inverter system that would be more cost effective than individual inverters, while offering solar capacity to investors at a more affordable price than personal installation).

The network could have systems in place for emergencies to automatically route power through safe lines to critical locations. I believe this was one of the original goals of smart grid "self healing", but it could be interfaced with the market to connect critical demand locations with individual sources.

One of the great barriers to individual ownership of power production is location and installation. You have to have the available land, the correct conditions, and either the direct access to utility lines at that location or the capacity for self-storage. If you have the available land then you have to pay the full cost of the installation (racking, routing, collection components, inversion components, home modification during installation, inspection, etc.). If systems can be utilized remotely (e.g. producing in a high demand area, and using the revenue to offset the price of power at home) than it could become much more viable to own sources of energy besides fossil fuels or large scale nuclear (I'm not knocking nuclear, but some people don't want it and would utilize alternative sources given the opportunity). Co-ops could be formed anywhere to build capacity in higher demand/production areas with the individual investors able to maintain economic pricing strategies for their portion of the capacity. Areas with high income, but low production of "green" energy would have more opportunities to purchase power production to meet their specific economic needs. People living in dorms, apartments, etc. can buy power production capacity that can scale down to fit their budget (e.g. you want to "go green" and offset some of your electricity bill, but lack either the space, available natural sunlight/wind/hydro, or capital for a full solar install, so you purchase 300 watts of capacity in a co-operative farm and begin offsetting the cost of the panels and some of your electric bill until you can afford more, eventually owning a remote capacity of "green" technology that is equivalent to or greater than your annual usage). This provides manufacturers of alternative energy equipment the ability to do more economic pricing/bundling/etc. than they could when limited to full system installs and customers in high energy production areas. People like me are a prime example of untapped markets. I'm an engineering student living in an apartment in an Appalachian area of Ohio that has neither reliable solar or wind (without government incentives), who doesn't make much, but could use the few hundred I scrape together for some bits of technology or software to buy a panel here and there as an investment instead, assuming I had some way to profit and recoup my investment in the panel over time.

The market system wouldn't necessarily require manual control over power purchase as it could be set to utilize the lowest cost per kilowatt-hour available. This could be disabled when the customer chooses to purchase power from a different supplier. This would appear on both supplier and customer's ends as a system very similar to level 2 market quotes (I wish I had more experience in trading, but unfortunately my experience is limited to buying shares of solar companies through td ameritrade, and I am not familiar with the interfaces of other brokers). Market quotes for bid and ask could be listed (along with a bit more technical information than stocks, such as calculated efficiency between source/demand) along with the owner/company registering the individual equipment supply (e.g. residential scale install) or collection/distribution center supply (e.g. investor capacity solar farms), and the specifics of the technology producing it (e.g. whether the residential scale install is solar, wind, etc., or what combination and percent of produced power is provided in a larger distribution service). This way consumers can make informed decisions about their utility purchases. If a consumer doesn't wish to pay the lower price of primary utility supply in favor of power that is "green" or is owned by someone they wish to support, then they can put a bid out for a specific source, or accept a specific ask. They could also use a range of filters to automate their power purchases according to taste (e.g. purchase "Solar" at less than $0.40/KWHr; if none available in range purchase "Wind" at less than $0.30/KWHr; if non available in range purchase "Green(any combination)" at less than $.20/KWHr; if none available in range purchase "Primary Utility ('XYZ Power' in your region)" at market price). Passing legislation for green energy would be less of an issue as consumers can vote directly with their funds in the sector of the market they demand instead of trusting the legislative branch to accurately gauge a perception of their demand.

Could anyone, from a single mother in an apartment building to a student in a dorm, own utility production capacity and maintain control over it's usage remotely?

Can utility ownership, at an individual level, be as viable as buying/renting a server or server capacity and hosting a website?

Alright, engineers of reddit... those of you who haven't fallen asleep or facepalmed so hard at what my lack of experience is missing that you're hand is now stuck that way and are kind of starting to worry about the medical implications just a bit... what works about this and what doesn't? What are some of the technological challenges that would need to be overcome, and how much of it is feasible? It is through criticism of my stupidity that I gain understanding. :)