Implementation of Blockchain based P2P Energy Trading Platform

Abstract

As the development of smart cities, energy management systems have been changing from centralized management systems to distributed energy management systems for better energy efficiency. In the distributed energy management systems, while producing the energy from distributed users, there can be two types of users such that 1) users who have surplus energy generations and 2) users who lack energy generations compared to their demands. In this paper, to alleviate such imbalance of energy generation between distributed users, a peer to peer (P2P) based energy trading platform is proposed. Specifically, blockchain is one of emerging solutions in which transactions can be made reliably to achieve P2P transactions without any centralized broker intervention. Correspondingly, we implement the P2P energy trading platform under Ethereum's smart contract for reliable trading. The energy generated from distributed users at the proposed platform can be traded by utilizing the characteristics of Decentralize Application. Specifically, we provide the details of implementations of the proposed platform, which includes both hardware platform and software platform. Further, we establish a web page and an mobile application for monitoring the transaction information such as transaction details and energy prices, which can enhance users' accessibility. Finally, the demonstration of process of energy trading via web interface is represented.