Zastosowania dowodów wiedzy zerowej do uwierzytelniania obliczeń optymalizacyjnych na lokalnych rynkach energii LEM

Abstract

The Local Energy Market (LEM) is a key element in the energy sector's transition toward a decentralized system, enabling the integration of a growing number of small generation sources and energy storage facilities located at end-user locations.By utilizing digital energy trading platforms provided by LEMs, small consumers, producers, and prosumers actively participate in system balancing, which, among others, allows them to increase profits and energy independence.The efficiency of energy exchange in LEM is achieved by means of optimization methods that make use of sensitive participant data, such as energy consumption profiles.Therefore, ensuring privacy while simultaneously ensuring trust in the achieved optimal quantitative and qualitative results is crucial.The classic technology used in decentralized systems, i.e., blockchain, does not provide adequate scalability when transactions result from solving optimization problems.In this article, we analyze the possibilities of verifying optimization results by the use of cryptographic zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP).We explain how ZKP can support privacy and enable verification of computations without the need of repeating them for every participant.We also refer to existing ZKP implementations on LEM, while highlighting the barriers of high computational costs that prevent direct implementation of complex optimization algorithms within ZKP protocols.'To overcome these barriers, we present an approach integrating ZKP with optimality certificates, which has significant potential to increase the efficiency of