Scenarios, Virtualization and Applications for Blockchain Technology in Smart Grids

Abstract

The evolution of smart grids (SGs) has brought about various changes in the structure of existing power grids. In this context, blockchain technology is offered an encouraging solution to overcome the issues in modern power systems. In this paper, the impacts, virtualization and applications of blockchain technology on energy systems are investigated and analyzed. The major contributions of this paper are to address the main concepts of blockchain technology related to power systems. Blockchain-based the SG management scenarios such as peer to peer (P2P) energy trading, industrial virtual power plants (VPPs) and demand response (DR) loads have been addressed and discussed. Besides, all potential challenges and opportunities of blockchain applications in the SGs are determined and discussed. As far as the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the few studies that deeply investigate and examine the popular applications of blockchain technology in power systems.