This paper presents a new hybrid approach that is suitable for application to energy smart meter gateways, based on combining both blockchain and Secure Element (SE) technologies serving the roles of a secure distributed data storage system and an essential component for building a "root of trust" in IoT platforms simultaneously. Blockchain technology alone may not completely secure a transaction because it only guarantees data immutability, while in most cases, the data has to be also secured at the point of generation. The proposed combinational approach aims to build a robust root of trust by introducing the SE, which will provide IoT devices with trusted computed resources. The feasibility of the proposed method is validated by testing three different implementation scenarios, using different Secure Element systems (SES) combined with blockchain and LPWAN communication technologies to encrypt, transmit, and save data. This hybrid approach aids in overcoming the obstructions of using any one technology alone, and its use is demonstrated with a case study for an Energy Smart Metering gateway that enables the implementation of a local Peer to Peer energy trading scheme that is end-to-end secure and decentralized.
Muhammad Tahir, Najma Ismat, Huma Hasan Rizvi, Asma Zaffar · 6 authors
The looming energy crisis is affecting every sector of the world. The dire need to conserve energy has compelled researchers to bring automation to the power sector. The conservation of energy is one of the biggest challenges Third-World countries are facing in general and in Europe due to the Russian–Ukrainian war. There is a need to introduce such systems that can prevent energy loss and let users buy and sell excessive electricity they have. In the field of power and electricity, the Internet of Things (IoT) plays an active role in the conservation of energy. The new concept of smart grids is widely used for efficient transmission. The technique of blockchain can further reduce the wastage of energy and efficient consumption if it is used with smart grids. This article proposes a smart energy meter based on smart grids and blockchain. The proposed implementation is a demonstration containing a few microgrids, each with its very own blockchain. The users will use energy by making transactions, following the smart contracts. The focus is on the peer-to-peer transactions in a microgrid controlled by blockchain. The architectural design outcomes are a smart energy meter, a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain, and an android application to monitor and control transactions and energy trade via smart contracts with other consumers.
Consumers in electricity markets are becoming more proactive because of the rapid development of demand-response management and distributed energy resources, which boost the transformation of peer-to-peer (P2P) energy-trading mechanisms. However, in the P2P negotiation process, it is a challenging task to prevent private information from being attacked by malicious agents. In this paper, we propose a privacy-preserving, two-party, secure computation mechanism for consensus-based P2P energy trading. First, a novel P2P negotiation mechanism for energy trading is proposed based on the consensus + innovation (C + I) method and the power transfer distribution factor (PTDF), and this mechanism can simultaneously maximize social welfare and maintain physical network constraints. In addition, the C + I method only requires a minimum set of information to be exchanged. Then, we analyze the strategy of malicious neighboring agents colluding to attack in order to steal private information. To defend against this attack, we propose a two-party, secure computation mechanism in order to realize safe negotiation between each pair of prosumers based on Paillier homomorphic encryption (HE), a smart contract (SC), and zero-knowledge proof (ZKP). The energy price is updated in a safe way without leaking any private information. Finally, we simulate the functionality of the privacy-preserving mechanism in terms of convergence performance, computational efficiency, scalability, and SC operations.
Intermittent distributed energy resources (DERs) add challenges to the modern power system network. On the other hand, information and communication technology (ICT) is changing traditional electricity grids into smart grids, which facilitates a decentralized system in which prosumers may participate in energy trading. Smart grids, DER integration, and network connectivity are adding complexity to the power system network day by day; Blockchain technology might be a great tool to manage the network’s operational complexity. The Blockchain provides for quicker, frictionless, secure, and transparent transactions. With the addition of smart contracts, it may be utilized to manage the expanding complexity of the contemporary power system. In this study, the authors focus on the scope, challenges, and potential future direction of Blockchain technology application in the power system. Blockchain has received interest and has been used for decentralized power system applications in recent years, but it is still young and has scalability, decentralization, and security concerns. This article discusses the interfaces and the possibilities that can assure trust, security, and transparency in decentralized power system applications and make a decentralized power system and power market possible.
The control of future power grids is migrating from a centralized to a distributed/decentralized scheme to enable a massive penetration of distributed energy resources and bring extreme enhancements of autonomous operations in terms of grid resilience, security, and reliability. Most effort has been on the design of distributed/decentralized controllers; however, the guarantees of the proper execution of the controls are also essential but relatively less emphasized. A common assumption is that local controllers would fully follow the designated controller dynamics based on the data received from communication channels. Such an assumption could be risky because proper execution of the controller dynamics is then built on trust in secure communication and computation. On the other hand, it is impractical for a verifier to repeat all the computations involved in the controls to verify the computational integrity. In this work, we leverage a type of cryptography technology, known as zero-knowledge scalable transparent arguments of knowledge to verify the computational integrity of control algorithms, such that verifiers can check the computational integrity with much less computational burden. The method presented here converts the challenge of data integrity into a subset of computational integrity. In this proof-of-concept paper, our focus will be on projected linear dynamics that are commonly seen in distributed/decentralized power system controllers. In particular, we have derived polynomial conditions in the context of zk-STARKs for the projected linear dynamics.
In this work, we elaborate on the concept of process authenticity, which intuitively corresponds to the validity of all process steps and their proper binding. It represents the most exciting forefront of distributed ledger technology research concerning the primary challenge of reliably connecting distributed ledger networks to the physical context it must operate. More in detail, the paper describes a novel methodological approach to ensure the authenticity of business processes through blockchain and several security mechanisms applied to the digital twins of the actual processes. We illustrate difficulties and opportunities deriving from implementing process authenticity in concrete case studies in which we were involved as software designers belonging to three critical application domains: document dematerialization, e-voting, and healthcare.
In order to analyze real-time power data without revealing users’ privacy, privacy-preserving data aggregation schemes have been extensively researched in smart grid. However, most of the existing schemes either can only allow stationary users, or require a trusted center. In this paper, we propose an efficient and robust multidimensional data aggregation scheme based on blockchain. In our scheme, a leader election algorithm in Raft protocol is used to select a mining node from all smart meters to aggregate data. A dynamically verifiable secret sharing homomorphism scheme is adopted to realize flexible dynamic user management. In addition, our scheme can not only resist internal and external attacks but also support multidimensional data aggregation and fault tolerance. The security analysis shows that our proposed scheme is IND-CPA secure and can meet stronger security features. The experimental results show that compared with other schemes, our scheme can be implemented with lower computation and communication overhead.
The Energy Internet (EI) and Smart Grid 2.0 (SG 2.0) concepts are potential challenges in industry and research. The purpose of SG 2.0 and EI is to automate innovative power grid operations. To move from Distribution Network Operators (DSO) to consumer-centric distributed power grid management, the blockchain and smart contracts are applicable. Blockchain technology and integrated SGs will present challenges, limiting the deployment of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs). This review looks at the decentralization of the Smart Grid 2.0 using blockchain technology. Energy trading has increased due to access to distributed energy sources and electricity producers who can financially export surplus fuels. The energy trading system successfully combines energy from multiple sources to ensure consistent and optimal use of available resources and better facilities for energy users. Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading is a common field of study that presents some administrative and technical difficulties. This article provides a general overview of P2P energy exchange. It discusses how blockchain can improve transparency and overall performance, including the degree of decentralization, scalability, and device reliability. The research is extended to examine unresolved issues and potential directions for P2P blockchain-based energy sharing in the future. In fact, this paper also demonstrates the importance of blockchain in future smart grid activities and its blockchain-based applications. The study also briefly examines the issues associated with blockchain integration, ensuring the decentralized, secure and scalable operation of autonomous electric grids in the future.
M A C L Gunarathna, Rebecca Yang, Sajani Jayasuriya, K Wang · 6 authors
Abstract The involvement of many stakeholders from diverse sectors throughout the distributed solar energy (DSE) project lifecycle and their discrete commitments to the project have lessened the stakeholder understanding in each other’s contribution. Communication between the stakeholders is not continuous and systematic; thus, the project information is not well-communicated for accurate decision making. Therefore, DSE projects have not yet won the complete stakeholder trust and its adoption in the building industry is not yet fully accepted. This study aims at exploring the opportunities for using blockchain technology to reduce/eliminate the trust issues and communication gaps along the DSE lifecycle. The study conducts 50 semi-structured interviews with building and energy stakeholders to identify the issues/ limitations which (1) reduce the stakeholder trust on DSE technologies and applications and (2) generate communication gaps along the DSE project lifecycle. Findings reveal that most of the issues/ limitations occurred due to the unavailability of a common platform for communication and information sharing, unavailability of information, improper record keeping and limited information security. The unique features of blockchain technology such as (1) distributed ledger technology (DLT), (2) smart contracts, (3) token-based access control, and (4) automated consensus and forking can effectively eliminate the identified issues/ limitations by providing (1) information accuracy and reliability, (2) information security, (3) open access to project information, (4) systematic record keeping and (5) proper governance of the system. The outcome of this study provides a systematic approach to increase the quality of communication in DSE projects design and management.
Advances in monitoring, sensing, control, and communication allow the use of Smart Grid. It enables smart metering applications, substation event and alarm updates, vehicle-tovehicle (V2V), and vehicle-to-network (V2G) energy transactions, among others. However, the data used is sensitive and communication between entities must be reliable and secure. For this, the Internet uses the Public Key Infrastructure (ICP) in which the communicating parties must have a digital certificate issued by a certification authority (CA). However, it has a centralized architecture with a single point of failure. An alternative to this is the use of distributed technologies and one that stands out is Blockchain. It is a technology that allows trusted communication between untrusted entities without a centralized third party. Also, Blockchain is a chronological sequence of blocks linked through the hash of each one. This characteristic ensures data integrity and immutability. Therefore, Blockchain is a powerful technology for recording data like access control rules. This work utilizes Blockchain to provide a framework applying the Smart Contract concept for a Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) system. Also, it uses the framework Truffle to test the Smart Contract functionalities and presents a study case of the proposal (KIM et al., 2019) together with this work. In counterpart to the related works, this work does not have a single-point of failure.
Digitization in the power industry enables wide connectivity among multiple new entrants such as DERs, prosumers, and P2P counterparts within or outside the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). The use of DLT to improve resilience in the power grid has growing support, but new technology provides new opportunities for adversaries to cause harm. This work completed by the Cybersecurity focused task force of IEEE SA P2418.5 evaluates the potential risks by applying the MITRE ATT&CK ICS matrix to the DLT Engineering and Cybersecurity Stack designed for power systems applications.
Jingya Dong, Chunhe Song, Tao Zhang, Youjun Hu · 6 authors
Blockchain technology provides the possibility for the realization of decentralized energy trading. However, the blockchain confronts privacy risks and efficiency issues, which hinder its application in energy trading. In this paper, to solve this problem, we propose an efficient and privacy-preserving decentralized energy trading scheme in a blockchain environment. We propose an account mapping algorithm to solve the privacy attack problem. We propose a new transaction processing method, which can protect private data and improve execution efficiency by two-layer transaction processing. Finally, we verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme for privacy protection and trading efficiency of decentralized energy transactions through experiments.
Mehran Hajiaghapour‐Moghimi, Kamyar Azimi Hosseini, Ehsan Hajipour, Mehdi Vakilian
Abstract In recent years, the mining of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin has attracted much global attention due to the simplicity and high profitability of this business, especially in countries with low electricity rates. The process of cryptocurrency mining using cryptocurrency mining devices requires a significant amount of computing power. This industry, which is increasingly growing in energy and carbon emissions, can cause environmental concerns. Common ways to reduce this amount of energy consumption are to prohibit mining and charge these loads at a higher electricity rate; however, these solution methods are not feasible and applicable in many countries. This paper presents an energy efficiency program to persuade the customers to mine cryptocurrency using high‐efficient cryptocurrency mining devices (CMDs), including informative, regulation, and financial policy instruments. This energy efficiency approach suggests a standard, if implemented, would ban the application of inefficient CMDs, and would encourage the cryptocurrency miners to improve the profitability of their business with high‐efficient CMDs through a penalty‐reward strategy. The performance of this energy efficiency program is studied through an analysis of data gathered from different CMDs used in Iran. The effectiveness of this suggested program is proved through its sufficient incentives for miners using high‐efficient CMDs.
As a powerful tool for building framework and autonomous system across various domains, smart contracts are used to maintain security analysis in a better way. However, owing to the decentralised structure of the blockchain on which they are built, a number of concerns have surfaced about weaknesses in their programming, that according to their unique characteristics, might have (and have already had) a very large economic effect. This essay surveys the whole scope of smart contract security issues and the cutting edge of freely accessible security software.
Conor Mullaney, Adnan Aijaz, Nathan Sealey, Ben Holden
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) energy trading provides various benefits over conventional wholesale energy markets and makes renewable energy more accessible. This paper proposes a novel multi-layer P2P energy trading system for microgrids based on IOTA 2.0, which is a distributed ledger technology (DLT) primarily designed for Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. The proposed energy trading system, which is a manifestation of a cyber-physical system (CPS), exploits the benefits brought by IOTA's unique ledger structure as well as the recently introduced IOTA smart contract protocol (ISCP). Further, it implements a uniform double-auction market mechanism and a hierarchical routing structure for interconnected microgrids. Performance evaluation demonstrates key benefits over wholesale markets as well as speed, energy efficiency and cost benefits over conventional blockchain-based P2P energy trading systems.
Joey H. Li, Münür Sacit Herdem, Jatin Nathwani, John Z. Wen
Information technologies involving artificial Intelligence, big data, Internet of Things devices and blockchain have been developed and implemented in many engineering fields worldwide. Existing review articles focus on developments and characteristics of individual topics and the associated deployment in the energy sector. These technologies, all based on communication, information, and data analysis, are naturally coherent and integrable. This article reviews the literature and patents in four closely related fields and aims to provide a holistic view of how they are related and their integrability in relation to smart energy management strategies. Artificial intelligence models forecast energy use and load profiles as well as schedule resources to ensure reliable performance and effective utilization of energy resources. Training artificial intelligence models requires immense volumes of data. Utilizing big data systems and data mining enables the discovery of new functions and relationships, which determines the performance of artificial intelligence. Data mining also refines the information; thus, artificial intelligence is trained iteratively with more accurate data. Smart energy management can be further enhanced through advanced digital technologies like Internet of Things and blockchain. An Internet of Things platform containing edge, fog and cloud layers helps connect artificial intelligence to other hardware and software devices and systems. Furthermore, an Internet of Things platform efficiently transmits and stores data, improving access and availability to stakeholders for data mining. Emerging technologies such as blockchain and cryptocurrency facilitate energy trading and can be designed in the cloud layer of an Internet of Things platform to supplement data storage. Providing an efficient and seamless integration of artificial intelligence, big data, and advanced digital technologies will be an important factor in the emerging transition of the energy sector to a lower-carbon system.
Mujeeb A. Shittu, Ibukun Olaoluwa Adeniji, Habeeb Shittu, Ifeanyi Simon Opara
This study presents a comprehensive and critical examination of blockchain-assisted secure data exchange within SCADA-controlled power systems, motivated by the growing cybersecurity risks and trust deficits associated with increasingly digitalised and decentralised electricity infrastructures. The primary purpose of the study is to evaluate the extent to which blockchain technologies can enhance the security, integrity, and resilience of SCADA data exchange while remaining compatible with the stringent performance and safety requirements of power system operations. A structured review methodology was adopted to synthesise peer-reviewed literature from power system engineering, cybersecurity, distributed ledger technologies, and related cyber-physical system domains. The analysis systematically examined SCADA communication architectures, data exchange models, blockchain fundamentals, integration paradigms, consensus mechanisms, privacy and access control strategies, interoperability challenges, and empirical pilot implementations across both developed and developing contexts. The findings reveal that conventional SCADA architectures, largely built on centralised trust and legacy protocols, are increasingly inadequate for addressing modern threat landscapes and multi-stakeholder data sharing requirements. Blockchain-assisted architectures—particularly permissioned and hybrid on-chain/off-chain models—demonstrate strong potential to improve data integrity, auditability, non-repudiation, and cross-organisational trust without disrupting real-time control functions. However, the study also identifies persistent challenges related to scalability, interoperability, governance complexity, and human capacity, which constrain large-scale deployment. Empirical evidence from pilot projects further indicates that blockchain is most effective when applied selectively at supervisory and coordination layers rather than within time-critical control loops. The study concludes that blockchain-assisted secure data exchange represents a strategically valuable complement to existing SCADA security mechanisms rather than a standalone solution. It recommends future research on performance-optimised consensus protocols, standardised integration frameworks, and the convergence of blockchain with advanced analytics and artificial intelligence. Policy alignment, capacity development, and context-aware implementation strategies are also essential to support sustainable adoption, particularly in developing power system environments.
Energy systems are transforming due to the incorporation of multiple distributed energy resources, such as renewable energy and battery storage systems. This transformation has triggered a need to shift power distribution from a low efficiency centralized model with high coordination costs to a decentralized distribution system comprising smart grids. Researchers have discovered a number of uses for blockchain technology in the energy sector because of its decentralized structure and possibility for safe transactions. In order to pinpoint current trends and important research directions in this area, this article thoroughly examines the effects of blockchain technology on smart grids and distributed energy resources. The aim of this paper is also to identify research gaps and future research initiatives in the area of blockchain-based energy distribution. To do this, 92 research publications were subjected to a comprehensive literature review based on predetermined criteria. Transactive Energy, Electric Vehicle Integration, Privacy and Security, and Demand Response, together with some other relatively fresh and unexplored topics, were, therefore, highlighted as four major focal areas of blockchain energy research. We have also drawn attention to the gaps in the research that has already been done and the constraints imposed by present systems that must be removed before blockchain technology can be widely used.
Dewi Immaniar, Anna Ayu Aryani, Shinta Zahrotul Ula
Globally, interest in renewable energy has grown recently. The microgrid integrates traditional dispersed energy resources utilizing technological tools and information technology, making it more effective and flexible to enhance the economic and environmental situations (IT). One of these technologies that has drawn interest in microgrid applications to create a sustainable society is blockchain. The blockchain idea can offer immutability for microgrid transactions such as recording power generation levels and confirming transactions between generators and end consumers. By eliminating the need to connect with third parties, blockchain-based smart contracts can be utilized for auditing or resolving a transaction dispute between the producers and the users. In this paper, we highlight many recent research projects on blockchain applications in microgrids and the use of smart contracts to enhance the transactive resilience in microgrids.
D. Jonathan Sebastian-Cardenas, Sri Nikhil Gupta Gourisetti, Shammya Shananda Saha, Komal Khan · 7 authors
Smart contracts (SCs) are a set of logical procedures that can be run by individual peers participating within a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) network. By design, smart contracts inherit many of the benefits of DLT, including its immutability, scalability and security properties. Nevertheless, they may introduce additional attack vectors, which can lead to cybersecurity explorations that could jeopardize the end-application's ability to operate as intended or result in data leaks, and privacy violations. In this work an exploration of known problems, and possible attack scenarios will be presented. This is followed by a set of proposed best practices and mitigation strategies that are intended to assist developers, researchers and other relevant stakeholders to develop secure SC implementations.
S. Bielecki, Tadeusz Skoczkowski, Lidia Sobczak, Marcin Wołowicz
This article reviews the issue of the use of cryptocurrencies (crypto-assets, in general) for an electricity settlement system. The development of digital techniques, including blockchain-based mechanisms, has meant that an increased interest in blockchain-based solutions is to be expected. Blockchain and similar approaches are characterised by decentralisation, so they are concurrent with the trends of the transforming power sector. Decentralised energy generation based on a high proportion of prosumer installations requires the implementation of a new settlement system for grid activities related to electricity use. The first projects of such systems based on a dedicated cryptocurrency have emerged. Based on these, the general concept of such a system with its own cryptocurrency called CCE is presented, including variants implementing net-metering and net-billing. Furthermore, issues requiring interdisciplinary research work and discussion before implementing such systems were identified. A settlement system in which a cryptocurrency is linked to a unit of energy used could be a first step towards introducing a new universal means of value exchange, linked to energy as the primary measure of the value of goods.
Suman Rath, Lam Duc Nguyen, Subham Sahoo, Petar Popovski
Blockchain has recently been depicted as a secure protocol for information exchange in cyber-physical microgrids. However, it is still found vulnerable to consensus manipulation attacks. These stealth attacks are often difficult to detect as they use kernel-level access to mask their actions. In this paper, we firstly build a trusted and secured peer-to-peer network mechanism for physical DC microgrids' validation of transactions over Distributed Ledger. Secondly, we leverage from a physics-informed approach for detecting malware-infected nodes and then recovering from stealth attacks using a self-healing recovery scheme augmented into the microgrid Blockchain network. This scheme allows compromised nodes to adapt to a reconstructed trustworthy signal in a multi-hop manner using corresponding measurements from the reliable nodes in the network. Additionally, recognizing the possible threat of denial-of-service attacks and random time delays (where information sharing via communication channels is blocked), we also integrate a model-free predictive controller with the proposed system that can locally reconstruct an expected version of the attacked/delayed signals. This supplements the capabilities of Blockchain, enabling it to detect and mitigate consensus manipulation attempts, and network latencies.
Interconnected Microgrids (IMGs) are considered a futuristic paradigm of power grids that offer modularity, resilience, and independence with energy exchangeability. In this context, each MG is accountable to its own citizens (i.e., generators or loads) and can participate in a market with its neighbours, if this enhances the benefits of its citizens. Thus, greedy behaviour is assumed to be rational for MGs participating in such a market. In this paper, a novel decentralized platform to facilitate energy trading between IMGs is developed. The platform would allow interested MGs to participate and gain benefits assuming self-benefit-driven (SBD) actions from participating MGs. The proposed platform provides a market-clearing approach based on sequential rounds. In each round, the MG with the cheapest energy price is privileged to export its surplus energy and maximize its own benefits. In order to identify the round champ, a decentralized ranking algorithm is developed to determine the MG with the cheapest energy price. The effectiveness of the proposed platform is validated using various case studies.