Blockchain has gained significant adoption in energy trading, offering benefits for both economy and environment. Consensus, in particular, is a decisive factor for blockchain-based energy trading systems to operate efficiently and securely. However, the consensuses currently applied have been criticized for being too energy intensive or not sufficiently decentralized, which counteracts the positive effect of energy trading. Besides, consensus and energy trading are treated separately in many energy trading blockchain-based studies. In this article, we propose a green and efficient consortium blockchain-enabled transaction system for energy trading, meeting the requirement of low energy consumption under security. We then design a two-stage consensus mechanism called proof-of-energy that is coupled to trading through “energy” and naturally uses the monetary rewards to stimulate prosumer participation. Specifically, it retains a strong degree of decentralization, which selects a dynamic delegation with high historical energy generation and motivates delegates to compete for new blocks by solving a meaningful puzzle. Furthermore, a variable block reward is investigated as the incentive to regulate trading and consensus behavior within a reasonable range of energy consumption. Finally, we design a two-layer iterative algorithm to obtain the optimal consensus strategy and block rewards, taking the noncooperative game approach with the consideration of the strategy effect on the pricing model. Our simulation results show that the proposed blockchain-enabled system has a high energy efficiency ratio that improves the social welfare and reduces the consensus overhead.
Yixuan Fan, Lei Zhang, Ruiyu Wang, Muhammad Ali Imran
Driven by the development of blockchain infrastructures and the promotion of Web 3, more than 4000 Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) have been developed as online organizations jointly owned and managed by their members who work for the same interests. Voting mechanisms as the democratic administration of DAOs without the involvement of central authority, are crucial to both the development of the DAO community and the protection of individual interests. This paper is one of the first analyses of the critical role of voting mechanisms in DAOs' operation. In the absence of systematic studies of voting mechanisms in DAOs, we propose five tiers of decentralization in DAO voting which marks the critical difference between DAO voting and conventional voting. We also define four dimensions to comprehensively evaluate the performance of DAO voting mechanisms, which identify the demands and characteristics of DAO voting and put forward clear design guidelines for voting mechanisms in DAOs. Finally, we take seven typical voting mechanisms as examples and analyze their performance in our proposed evaluation schemes.
By combining distributed generation, battery storage, and smart meters, microgrid performance can be enhanced. As a result, distributed energy resources (DER) can be intelligently controlled via online platforms. Through integration, prosumers that use decentralized resources like wind power have replaced conventional power customers. Due to the growth and digitalization of the power distribution infrastructure, a new method of exchanging electricity in community microgrids called peer-to-peer (P2P) intratrading has emerged. Blockchain technology is used because it is transparent, secure, and completes transactions quickly. Prosumers, consumers, and owners of renewable energy sources may now trade energy more easily amongst one another. This study develops the P2P paradigm to create a self-sufficient community microgrid system for trading energy. Incorporating peer-to-peer energy trades and a battery backup system, the suggested technique uses blockchain to simulate a decentralized microgrid energy market. The microgrid P2P market's clearing price is established by taking into account customers' expected reactions to price changes, incentivizing consumers and prosumers to alter their patterns of energy usage. A cryptocurrency called Cosmos that is mined and distributed using blockchain technology is also included in the P2P market idea. The results show how automated P2P commerce and adjustable energy storage enable end users to save energy and become more independent. This paper provides a sustainable microgrid energy market model and suggests an approach to improve security by incorporating blockchain technology into current energy management systems. In summary, the paper offers a design paradigm for an independent microgrid system that makes use of distributed energy sources. It demonstrates how end users may gain from energy efficiency and independence while highlighting the possibilities of P2P energy trade and storage variety offered by blockchain. This thorough method provides information on creating a sustainable microgrid energy market and illustrates how blockchain technology can be used to increase the safety of energy management systems.
The paradigm shift from a coal-based power system to a renewable-energy-based power system brings more challenges to the supply-demand balance of the grid. Distributed energy resources (DERs), which can provide operating reserve to the grid, are regarded as a promising solution to compensate for the power fluctuation of the renewable energy resources. Small-scale DERs can be aggregated as a virtual power plant (VPP), which is eligible to bid in the operating reserve market. Since the DERs usually belong to different entities, it is important to investigate the VPP operation framework that coordinates the DERs in a trusted manner. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-assisted operating reserve framework for VPPs that aggregates various DERs. Considering the heterogeneity of various DERs, we propose a unified reserve capacity evaluation method to facilitate the aggregation of DERs. By considering the mismatch between actual available reserve capacity and the estimated value, the performance of VPP in the operating reserve market is improved. A hardware-based experimental system is developed, and numerical results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.
In recent years, the continuous increase in the number of renewable energy sources and users has led to an increase in the load on the electricity market. In this environment, the personal information data and management flexibility cannot be guaranteed in a market that integrates producers and consumers. It seems that the new energy market will face many challenges, such as how to price the output power of power plants according to different energy sources, which price that consumers can sell to other market users through self-generated electricity, how to communicate with consumers and producers in order to maintain the balance of the market and encourage consumers to reduce electricity consumption, how to calculate the market load in order to reduce carbon emissions and protect the environment. In the face of many of the above challenges, it is beneficial to introduce blockchain technology into the energy market because of the unique characteristics, which effectively reduces the cost of maintaining the market and enhances the flexibility of the market. But different market users are sensitive to market information with the advent of information transparency. Therefore, how to restrain the user behavior of the market and maintain the stability of the market will become a major problem. In this paper, we propose a market-based access control strategy to construct a blockchain framework and design an access control-based smart contract to constrain the behavior of each user. In order to further strengthen the relationship between producers and consumers, the concept of prosumer is used to enable consumers to participate in trading activities as energy producers. The experimental results are proved that the proposed solution works successfully in the blockchain, with timely responses between prosumers and consumers, good execution time and the admission of access control provides better market efficiency.
Muhammad Umer, Saima Sadiq, Reemah Alhebshi, Maha Farouk S. Sabir · 9 authors
For the past few years, the concept of the smart house has gained popularity. The major challenges concerning a smart home include data security, privacy issues, authentication, secure identification, and automated decision-making of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Currently, existing home automation systems address either of these challenges, however, home automation that also involves automated decision-making systems and systematic features apart from being reliable and safe is an absolute necessity. The current study proposes a deep learning-driven smart home system that integrates a Convolutional neural network (CNN) for automated decision-making such as classifying the device as "ON" and "OFF" based on its utilization at home. Additionally, to provide a decentralized, secure, and reliable mechanism to assure the authentication and identification of the IoT devices we integrated the emerging blockchain technology into this study. The proposed system is fundamentally comprised of a variety of sensors, a 5 V relay circuit, and Raspberry Pi which operates as a server and maintains the database of each device being used. Moreover, an android application is developed which communicates with the Raspberry Pi interface using the Apache server and HTTP web interface. The practicality of the proposed system for home automation is tested and evaluated in the lab and in real-time to ensure its efficacy. The current study also assures that the technology and hardware utilized in the proposed smart house system are inexpensive, widely available, and scalable. Furthermore, the need for a more comprehensive security and privacy model to be incorporated into the design phase of smart homes is highlighted by a discussion of the risks analysis' implications including cyber threats, hardware security, and cyber attacks. The experimental results emphasize the significance of the proposed system and validate its usability in the real world.
Decentralization forms an integral part of democracy, arising from the conduction of elections.Modern democracies rely heavily on elections.However, there is a lack of trust building up due to the cases of discrepancies in the process.The "e-voting" system was developed after the 1960s.It overcame a lot of issues existing in the ballot voting system.In present times the significance of E-Voting has grown drastically.It cuts down the cost of hosting an election and increases the number of participants as they are free to cast their vote from any location, without any ballot boxes, or areas for establishing polling booths.There were still obstacles to overcome and deliver results.Even the most developed democracies, such as India and the United States, have error-prone voting processes.Voter fraud, EVM hacking, and polling station theft are the main issues with the current voting system.Reliability along with security and precision must be considered while performing elections.The blockchain with smart-contracts stands out as a leading candidate for developing more reliable, cost-effective, transparent, and user-friendly electronic voting systems.Undoubtedly, the revolutionary blockchain idea is the technology behind the cryptocurrency Bitcoin and its derivatives.Ethereum and its network are among the greatest because of their dependability and wide acceptance.An electronic voting system must be secure and transparent to avoid double voting and maintain privacy.In this study, we have used Ethereum wallet along with Solidity Programming language for developing a smart contact for Ethereum network that works as E-Voting System.
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) energy trading has the potential to create a more efficient and sustainable electricity market. It can relieve the load on the power grid during peak usage periods. However, such a P2P energy market is decentralized and vulnerable to numerous cyber attacks. Decentralized blockchain technology has been proposed to solve these problems. The consensus mechanism is the core of blockchain. It determines the effectiveness and safety of blockchain for energy trading. However, consensus mechanisms applied to energy trading today are traditional consensus. Due to their high latency and significant computational power, they cannot be directly implemented in P2P energy trading. Therefore, we propose a novel Block Alliance Consensus (BAC) mechanism. The BAC breaks through the blockchain impossible triangle in the energy trading scenario by reasonably pursuing decentralization. We achieve infinite scalability via sharding. Within each shard, we substitute the Hashgraph for conventional methods to further improve the throughput and transaction speed. We design a cross-shard method for transactions between different shards. We implement the energy trading blockchain (ETB) and BAC consensus mechanism on the Hyperledger Fabric platform. The experiments show that our ETB is not limited to the impossibility triangle like other consensus. Our BAC mechanism achieves infinite scalability while ensuring high levels of security.
Zaoxian Zheng, Zhenghao Qian, Ye Liu, Hui Li · 6 authors
With the development of distributed energy resources (DERs) and microgrids, the traditional electricity trading system based on centralized models is no longer suitable for the current energy market. To address this issue, in this paper, we propose a smart contract-based large-scale power trading system for microgrids. To do this, we first model the two-tier large-scale power trading system of the microgrid, then use the Hungarian algorithm to match the power transactions, and package all the power transactions into a blockchain transaction once they are completed via smart contracts. Finally, a simulation experiment is conducted to demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can effectively reduce the time taken for power transactions.
Buildings can become a significant contributor to an energy system’s resilience if they are operated in a coordinated manner to exploit their flexibility in multi-carrier energy networks. However, research and innovation activities are focused on single-carrier optimization (i.e., electricity), aiming to achieve Zero Energy Buildings, and miss the significant flexibility that buildings may offer through multi-energy coupling. In this paper, we propose to use blockchain technology and ERC-1155 tokens to digitize the heat and electrical energy flexibility of buildings, transforming them into active flexibility assets within integrated multi-energy grids, allowing them to trade both heat and electricity within community-level marketplaces. The solution increases the level of interoperability and integration of the buildings with community multi-energy grids and brings advantages from a transactive perspective. It permits digitizing multi-carrier energy using the same token and a single transaction to transfer both types of energy, processing transaction batches between the sender and receiver addresses, and holding both fungible and non-fungible tokens in smart contracts to support energy markets’ financial payments and energy transactions’ settlement. The results show the potential of our solution to support buildings in trading heat and electricity flexibility in the same market session, increasing their interoperability with energy markets while decreasing the transactional overhead and gas consumption.
In 2022, Thailand’s Demand Response (DR) business model was shifting from the Traditional Utility (TU) model to the Load Aggregator (LA) model in accordance with Thailand’s smart grid master plan. This research studied the current demand response model and mechanism to draw possible gaps in operations. This research deals with the data system owned by the individual load aggregator. The load aggregators collect meter data and evaluate demand adaptations before sending the results to claim compensation on behalf of their customers. This approach lacks transparency and facilitates distortion of the facts. Hence, this research introduces the data execution by smart contracts and data records on the blockchain that enhance transparent data sharing among multiple parties and maintain data integrity. Moreover, the proposed bidding algorithm allows customers to offer an expected price under the maximum incentive payment determined by the avoided costs of running the peaking power plants. Hence, the bidding helps reflect the DR operation costs on the customer side and control the budget for incentive payments. This study emphasized the smart contracts and decentralized application layer, so the public blockchain is a reasonable network for the test. However, implementation in real cases using the public blockchain requires careful considerations, such as network fees, transaction speeds, and the security of smart contract codes.
Tianfeng Chu, Xingchen An, Wuyang Zhang, Yan Lu · 5 authors
Virtual power plants can aggregate distributed energy resources and interruptible loads in a region for coordinated regulation and unified transaction. However, with the diversification of competition in the electricity market, the distributed operation mechanism between multiple virtual power plants (multi-VPPs) has gradually become a research focus. Based on this, this paper proposes a new type of distributed transactions strategy between multi-VPPs, i.e., the transaction matching mechanism. A two-stage transaction model based on the transaction matching is constructed for multi-VPPs to participate in the day-ahead and intraday electricity trading markets. In the first stage, each VPP optimizes its own internal units’ output and external interaction power through a cooperative game; in the second stage, it is the transaction matching among multi-VPPs that can match the most suitable counterpart by flexible price setting to increase the benefits of all the VPPs. Considering the efficiency and security of blockchain technology, we choose to complete the transaction matching between multi-VPPs with the support of alliance blockchain technology to improve the speed of system solution.
The complexities associated with modern energy grids, including high penetration levels of renewable energy sources at the end use customers, the proliferation of electric vehicles (EVs), as well as decentralized energy management systems and energy data portals and services, require secure, reliable and cost-effective new platforms to administer such systems in a transparent manner. Blockchain technology can address such challenging complexities efficiently. This paper presents a thorough literature review of all potential blockchain applications in electric energy systems. First, all potential blockchain application possibilities and constraints in electric energy systems have been identified. Then, the implementations of blockchain technology in power systems are divided into various categories, such as demand response (DR), EVs, decentralized energy management, energy trading and distributed renewable energy. A detailed literature analysis is conducted by following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines in a systematic approach using credible and reliable database systems such as IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect, and Scopus to highlight current advancements in blockchain technology uses in electric energy systems particularly in DR, as well as future potential and existing problems. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part lists the important publications that have delved into the implementation of Blockchain in demand response. Trends of Blockchain applications in other electric energy system areas are detailed in the second section. The final part highlights the evolution and advancement of blockchain-based electric energy systems including favourable attributes of structures and designs, as well as the challenges and future trends.
Liaqat Ali, M. Imran Azim, Jan Peters, Nabin B. Ojha · 10 authors
In this paper, a framework is proposed for integration of peer-to-peer (P2P) trading-based local energy market (LEM) with the blockchain technology. The proposed LEM model allows prosumers and consumers to trade electricity among each other ensuring the presence of the retailer and network utility – who are also essential parts of a P2P network. The P2P contracts settled between various prosumers and consumers are governed by mutually agreed upon smart contracts – which are then written in an Ethereum blockchain to record and store bidding history, P2P transactions, and settlements. An effective formulation is also presented to capture P2P trading quantities and prices among participating prosumers and consumers in a decentralised fashion with an appropriate analysis of financial viability. Finally, a case study is conducted in a real Australian context; in which the engagement of both prosumers and consumers are taken into account, and the performance of the proposed blockchain-enabled LEM is compared with business-as-usual (BAU) to demonstrate the model's superiority.
Liaqat Ali, M. Imran Azim, Jan Peters, Nabin B. Ojha · 10 authors
This paper presents a local energy market (LEM) model to conduct peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading between a number of participants by dint of the Ethereum-based blockchain technology. The proposed LEM mechanism is structured by considering relevant functional constraints while energy trading is arranged between several participants in the presence of other stakeholders including energy retailer and network operator. LEM participants’ mutual bidding intended P2P trading, actual settlement, and final billing are executed using the smart contracts in Ethereum blockchain to record LEM transactions and related data in an unchangeable and distributed fashion. Lastly, a case study is performed in an Australian suburb with 300 LEM participants, and the simulation results are benchmarked with an existing business-as-usual (BAU)scenario. The simulation results outline that the formulated LEM mechanism 1) reduces the electricity cost of participants remarkably while improving their self-sufficiency, 2) minimises power grid export and import, and 3) retains income margins for the energy retailer and network operator.
The adoption of blockchain in various industries is gaining more popularity, especially in the energy industry. With the increase of distributed energy resources (DER), energy users can generate, store, and trade their resources with others. Utility companies or energy users are influenced by blockchain-based peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading markets. Blockchain adds transparency and immutability to the involved transactions. Smart contracts in blockchain automatically execute when the conditions are met without any third-party intervention. Motivated by these benefits, in this paper an energy trading framework is developed using Ethereum smart contracts. Energy users can trade their excess energy or buy energy using the smart contract functions. Smart contract written in solidity is compiled and deployed using remix with injected metamask provider. Ganache is used to create accounts and these accounts are imported to metamask for signing transactions. We also discuss alternative methods for smart contract deployment. Computational cost analysis is performed by evaluating the gas consumption analysis for the smart contract functions.
Veerapandiyan Veerasamy, L. P. Mohasha Isuru Sampath, Shailendra Singh, Hung D. Nguyen · 5 authors
This paper presents a blockchain-based decentralized frequency control of an islanded microgrid (MG) using a novel federated learning fractional order recurrent neural network (FL-FORNN). A self-adaptive proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller is proposed using FL-FORNN to handle the uncertainties of power generation by the prosumers while participating in the trading of the islanded MG. In this work, the frequency oscillations during peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading are regulated through the appropriate design of an adaptive controller and the implementation of a smart contract participation matrix (SCPM) for balancing the generation and consumer demand. A Proof-of-Authority (PoA) private blockchain-based SCPM has been developed to secure the contract among peers. The SCPM provides the power demand information from a consumer to a prosumer who participates in the P2P energy market. It also provides power reference to the prosumer distributed generation as a supplementary control, in addition to the secondary frequency control of the system. To study this, an islanded MG comprising four source nodes (prosumers) and three demand nodes (consumers) are tested with the implementation of the PoA-based blockchain framework. With its SCPM calculation running in the blockchain framework, the decentralized control of prosumers is implemented by interfacing the OPAL-RT with Raspberry Pi devices. The robustness of the proposed FL-FORNN controller has been verified with the FORNN tuned PID controller. Furthermore, a comparative analysis is made with the centralized scheme and traditional decentralized frequency control technique.
Abstract Distributed renewable energy supply (RES) is a new pattern for the transformation of power grids. As a characteristic case of RES, microgrids have an advantage in convenient operation. However, the energy management of microgrids remains as a major concern. With the emergence of the decentralized paradigm, blockchain potentially provides a reliable energy data metering and payment for the whole life cycle of energy management. In particular, the demand response (DR) in the microgrid can stimulate demanders to spontaneously manage their load consumption and maintain the balance of the energy trading market. To achieve optimal DR, a dynamic pricing strategy under the blockchain and game‐theoretic approach is proposed. First, the blockchain‐based architecture is applied to ensure the reliability of energy data and lay a foundation of binding agreements for games. Then, the pricing mechanism under the cooperative game is formulated to optimize DR. Moreover, to help resolve the optimal response quantity and reduce the supply punishment of the RES providers, the DR requires accurate forecasting of the energy generation and consumption profiles. Therefore, an ensemble method Long Short‐Term Gate Support (LSTGS) is designed to forecast the RES and load power for intelligent agent to make decision on effective energy scheduling and DR. Taking the classic distributed energy context as a case study, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach and show that it can achieve DR profits maximized and improve the stability of the energy‐trading market.
In recent years, user-side energy storage has begun to develop. At the same time, independent energy storage stations are gradually being commercialized. The user side puts shared energy storage under coordinated operation, which becomes a new energy utilization scheme. To solve the many challenges that arise from this scenario, this paper proposes a community power coordinated dispatching model based on blockchain technology that considers shared energy storage and demand response. First of all, this paper analyzes the operating architecture of a community coordinated dispatching system under blockchain. Combined with the electricity consumption mode of communities using a shared energy storage station service, the interactive operation mechanism and system framework of block chain for coordinated dispatching are designed. Secondly, with the goal of minimizing the total cost of coordinated operation of the community alliance, an optimal dispatching model is established according to the relevant constraints, such as the community demand response, shared energy storage system operation and so on. Thirdly, the blockchain application scheme of community coordinated dispatching is designed, including the incentive mechanism based on the improved Shapley value allocation coordination cost, and the consensus algorithm based on the change rate of users’ electricity utilization utility function. Finally, the simulation results show that the proposed community coordinated dispatching strategy in this paper can effectively reduce the economic cost, reduce the pressure on the power grid, and promote the consumption of clean energy. The combination of the designed cost allocation and other methods with blockchain technology solves the trust problem and promotes the innovation of the power dispatching mode. This study can provide some references for the application of blockchain technology in user-side energy storage and shared energy storage.
Zhenwei Guo, Bo Qin, Zhenyu Guan, Yujue Wang · 6 authors
Due to the rapid development of demand response management and distributed energy resources, prosumers are becoming more proactive, which also promotes the emergence of peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading mechanisms. However, we find that it is quite difficult to simultaneously achieve high computational efficiency, decentralized operations and solution optimality in a P2P energy trading mechanism, which is called the “P2P energy trading trilemma”. In this paper, we first propose a novel negotiation mechanism for P2P energy trading that can maximize social welfare in a decentralized manner and respect physical network constraints. Then, the local optimization problem is transformed into a closed-form alternating update algorithm (AUA), so that the computational efficiency can be greatly improved. Therefore, our proposed mechanism solves the “P2P energy trading trilemma” to a certain extent. Another challenge is that the locational marginal price (LMP)-based market mechanism cannot satisfy the incentive-compatible property. To encourage prosumers to cooperate in a lack-of-trust environment, a novel incentive-compatible mechanism is proposed for P2P energy trading using consensus mechanism inspired by proof of solution (PoSo) and smart contract (SC). Finally, we simulate the functionality of the mechanism in terms of convergence performance, reliability, scalability, computational efficiency, and SC operations.
With increasing activities in cryptocurrencies and their fast-growing global mining demand comes new opportunities and challenges facing the electric energy systems. From the electric grid perspective, the key challenges are how to properly monitor and predict cryptocurrency mining demand at wholesale and retail levels. While large-scale mining companies connected to the transmission level can use directly instrument sensors to monitor their mining demand, how to monitor behind-the-meter cryptocurrency mining demand is still an open question. In this paper, we propose an edge-level distribution level Bitcoin mining detection scheme that utilizes smart meter data to detect the on/off status of the mining machines and estimates the power consumption magnitude of the mining load in each house. We investigate the performance of our algorithm with different Bitcoin load variations representing a wide range of possible mining devices and behaviors. Numerical results suggest that the proposed algorithm can detect both the on/off status of these loads with above 94% accuracy and calculate its load magnitude with less than 16% error for common ASIC miners. Building upon this method, aggregators could coordinate individual household mining loads for participation in demand response programs that help reduce peak demand and increase social welfare.