Blockchain and distributed energy systems

Abstract

The future energy systems have three main focus areas: decarbonization, digitalisation and decentralisation with a significant interest in empowering energy consumers. However, structure of the current energy systems is not adequate to fulfil this vision <em>of future</em> grid. Many energy industry leaders and energy systems researchers are assertive that the blockchain or distributed ledger technologies would bring about solutions to difficulties within the distributed energy systems. The attributes <em>of blockchain</em> which were investigated in <em>this paper</em> where applied in other non-power industries such as bitcoin <em>were found</em> to have the potential to be applicable in the four areas <em>of a</em> smart grid namely: generation, transmission, distribution <em>and power</em> consumption.Blockchain has attributes that can change the distributed energy system in the following ways: securing transactions between network users without the intermediaries such as the utility; allowing peer to peer energy trading which gives users freedom ofchoice, price comparisons and freedom; finally, it was concluded that various advantages of the technology such as grid management, energy trading and grid security were illustrated and how they can change the distributed energy systems however limitations and drawbacks still needs to be considered before blockchain can be fully utilized in the distributed energy sector.