Blockchain Papers

A. Kameshwaran, Dahlia Sam, R.S. Rashika, N. Kanya · 6 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Muhammad Faizan, Ghuffran Ahmed, Farrukh Hassan Syed

Transactive energy management (TEM) is a revolutionary peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading idea that would be establish a market of distributed energy with greater sustainable energy utilization by involving native prosumers as a major participants in the energy ecosystem. Considering prosumer concerns is crucial to the development and adoption of the P2P energy exchange paradigm. In such system a transition, regulatory and policy considerations are equally crucial. However, there is a significant knowledge gap in areas such as users, data, and energy law. Several interconnected building components, including market of energy providers and network companies of generation, transmission and distribution, make up a transactive energy framework. Analyzing the performance of such a framework’s key components can help determine its effectiveness. This article offers a straightforward explanation of transactive energy that aids in pinpointing its fundamental constituent parts. Each component of the transactive energy system is concisely reviewed to emphasize its important function and efficiency based on identification of key building blocks. Then, few enabling technologies for such systems are examined. To hasten its adoption, several policy recommendations are offered at the conclusion. Ultimately, the research will incorporate regulatory and security issues into a comprehensive approach for optimizing the TEM procedure by applying non-fungible token (NFT’s) with unique identification which distinguish them from each other. Machine Learning and Internet of Things techniques also incorporate to minimize technological constraints for gathering metadata.

R. Anusuya, D. Karthika Renuka, L Ashok Kumar

No abstract is available for this record.

Jian Ping, Da Li, Zheng Yan, Xiaowen Wu · 5 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Manish Kumar Thukral

As traditional power grid is restructuring into smart grid, the concept of peer-to-peer electricity market is becoming a topic of immense interest among the researchers. With this blockchain enabled electricity trading platform has been gaining momentum owing to its capability to provide secure transactions. Work has been reported in recent times employing blockchain technology for implementing decentralized electricity marketing. Most of the work focuses on designing electricity marketing rules only on the smart contract. In the presented work a neural network based solar and wind power prediction model is shown working in tandem with blockchain based simple auction peer-to-peer electricity marketing mechanism. This gives direct advantage to the prosumers to auction their surplus power in day ahead marketing by having right knowledge of solar and wind power prediction of their plant. This reduces risk factor for prosumer paying penalty in case the promised energy delivery is not fulfilled and at the same time load to demand balance can be maintained. A smart contract for peer-to-peer electricity marketing rules has been implemented on Ethereum blockchain platform and deployed on Ropsten Test Network. The neural network based solar and wind power prediction model has been designed on MATLAB R2018b. At the end a demonstration is done considering a scenario of prosumer auctioning solar and wind power to different consumers on blockchain Ropsten test network. This research work does not consider the power distribution network constraints.

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.

Valeri Mladenov, Veselin Chobanov, Thong Vu Van, Pencho Zlatev

The architecture, characteristics, and elements of Blockchain technology used to create a peer-to-peer energy trading platform are outlined in the paper. Here, we discussed the benefits of Blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) for energy trading applications and how they assist the expanding decentralization and democratization ideologies in the energy industry.

Muhammad T. Afzal, Jianping Li, Waqas Amin, Qi Huang · 8 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Feng Xue, Kang Chang, Wei Li, Qin Wang · 8 authors

In this paper, a blockchain-enabled energy trading method is proposed to deal with the inefficiency and security issues in energy trading for electric vehicles in smart grids. It includes the design of a smart contract and the excitation mechanism of energy sharing. The credit points of each vehicle as a node are considered in the design of the smart contract, which is used to supervise the process of energy trading. A strategy to estimate the credit points of each node and describe the excitation mechanism is illustrated. The connection between the credit points and the probability that a node would be accepted for energy trading has been established. To control the energy trading access, a double auction method is used to choose the part of the nodes participating in energy trading. Only selected nodes with winning bids can supply or request energy from the blockchain-based platform. Then it reaches the conclusion that the higher the credit points they have, the more trading initiative they would have during the energy transaction and transmission. The smart contract design and the excitation mechanism proposed in this paper would reward the vehicles that perform well and punish the beguiling vehicles for regulating the trading process.

Shuangrui Yin, Qian Ai, Jiamei Li, Da Li · 5 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Mohamed Hamouda, Mohamed Nassar, M.M.A. Salama

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.

Laura Cirrincione, Maria La Gennusa, Giorgia Peri, Gianfranco Rizzo · 5 authors

Decarbonizing urban environments and reducing their energy consumption is one of modern society biggest commitments. In this regard, both the scientific community and international governments have been giving special consideration on improving the energy-environmental performance of mostly single buildings; recently the focus has been shifting towards a broader Positive Energy District (PED)/ Energy Community (EC) vision, from small clustered group of buildings to neighborhoods up until urban settlements. In this respect, integrating the use of renewable energy resources (RES) and actively involving building users can have a significant environmental impact on local areas. Within this framework, this work discusses the possibility of employing an innovative blockchain-based approach for the energy interaction among buildings. The blockchain technology can, in fact, be useful in managing such scenarios since it would allow to, not only consider buildings occupants behaviors, but also take into account concernings regarding the need for transparency, engagement, environmental and human health benefits, as well as the stakeholders role in the interaction/integration between PEDs/ECs and local/national electricity systems.

Felix Funk, Franz Teske, Jörg Franke, Christian Heider · 6 authors

The continued proliferation of renewable energy sources (RES) in the residential sector enables private households to increasingly participate in the energy market. However, it also poses an infrastructural challenge as their spatial dispersion and the simultaneity of their energy generation increase the strain on the main grid. Local energy markets (LEMs) have been proposed to amend this effect by leveraging market dynamics to efficiently allocate privately generated energy in the immediate vicinity. Blockchain has been suggested as suitable information technology to reflect and support the decentralization and the parity characteristic of such LEMs. While some research on the topic has been conducted, concerns regarding anonymity in the proposed markets remain. In this study, we hence conceptualize a Blockchain-based LEM which expands on previous designs by introducing a one-time-address-based anonymization technique. The proposed concept also extends the double auction mechanisms of existing LEMs by a sealed offering protocol, providing information symmetry. The concept is prototypically implemented and validated using a Proof of Authority Ethereum network. It is shown that the implementation is sufficiently scalable for proposed LEM sizes.

Marco Galici, Emilio Ghiani, Mario Mureddu, Fabrizio Pilo

This paper presents an innovative methodology for managing a local electric market based on artificial intelligence techniques, integrated with a distributed ledger technology platform. The methodology allows an aggregate of users, for example constituting a local energy community, to optimize its energy costs by adopting a local energy market that manages its controllable energy resources in real-time. To achieve this result, the electricity market is managed by means of a distributed ledger platform used for both the certified recording of market operators' bids and for the sharing of a market-solving deep neural network algorithm. This market-solving platform is continuously adapted to the external changes in energy production, consumption and prices. By sharing the state of the system by means of the distributed ledger, the proposed platform allows every operator to locally define its optimal production/consumption and adapting its status according to the community energy needs. The proposed platform has been implemented with a computer-based simulation software and successfully tested for a day-long, 1-minute timestep. The results presented in the paper shown the usefulness of the tool developed in a renewable energy community real case scenario.

Soheil Saadatmandi, Gianfranco Chicco, Alfredo Favenza, Hamidreza Mirtaheri · 5 authors

The energy sector is undergoing a vast transformation. Innovations in renewable energy production, electric vehicles (EVs) and smart meters are pushing the energy sector towards decentralisation. In this context, determining the potential of distributed ledger technology (DLT) through smart contracts and interoperability between different sections of the grid is an open point. Implementation of blockchain as a DLT into the electricity distribution network with the combination of multiple components, assists decentralisation and the connection of end-users directly to the grid. In this paper, a new method is proposed to charge EVs based on fuzzy logic and distributed ledger using a proof of stake algorithm. In this way, the risk of manipulation and loss of data, which could be detrimental to the energy sector, is reduced. The decentralisation of controlling EV's charging is achieved using this technique and the data floating inside the network is immutable and protected by the consensus mechanism of blockchain.

T. Deepa, N. Saraswathi, S. Hariprasad, KMS Praveen · 6 authors

Abstract Blockchain is an emerging technology which is known for its popularity and reliability. First introduced in 2008, it has now expanded to many areas such as IoT, cryptocurrency and Smart contracts. A blockchain consists of blocks assembled in the form of a chain. Data from each participant in the network is stored in these blocks. It is done in a block format called a series of transactions. The Internet of Things (IoT) has transformed many traditional lifestyles. The IoT has enabled cities, housing, pollution control, energy saving and intelligent transportation systems. Blockchain technology and the Internet of Things can increase the efficiency of peer-to-peer energy trading platforms. The open-source peer to peer (P2P) energy trading system is designed on the blockchain. Peer to peer (P2P) is a decentralized communication model in which each party has the same functionality and each party can initiate a communication session. The system collects real time data, monitors and controls it using MQTT Protocol. The trading activities takes place on a web interface which uses a public test Ethereum blockchain, they are tamper-proof. IoT is used to monitor and control the energy. The energy data is acquired and processed using Wi-Fi Based microcontrollers.

Shuvam Sarkar Roy

Increased adoption of distributed generation, energy storage, and other IoT devices (such as smart meters) is working to generate new opportunities for centralized control operations and energy markets. Blockchain provides businesses and IoT devices with a potential route to better navigate these changes by optimizing the use of ever-increasing volumes of energy data and providing organizations and individuals with new ways of transacting and building a trustworthy energy transaction management network without the need for a central authority. Using IoT-enabled smart meters, P2P trading systems provide a virtual platform where prosumers and consumers may trade electricity at a mutually agreed-upon price without the need for an intermediary. India Smart Grid Forum (ISGF), in collaboration with Power Ledger, has demonstrated two successful first-of-their-kind pilots in Southeast Asia in India. The first pilot project in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, went live in December 2020 with 12 participants, and Tata Power Delhi Distribution Ltd. (TPDDL) went live in January 2021 with over 65 prosumers and 75 consumers. Based on the various trading rules that have been used since the pilots started, it has been demonstrated that a network access charge for the DISCOM may be included in this type of trading scenario, incentivizing the DISCOM to allow P2P energy trading among their customers while also promoting widespread adoption of smart meters across the country.

Jingya Dong, Chunhe Song, Shuo Liu, Huanhuan Yin · 6 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Sepideh Saravani Ghayour, Taghi Barforoushi

No abstract is available for this record.

Miguel Gayo-Abeleira, Carlos Santos, Francisco J. Rodríguez, Pedro Martı́n · 6 authors

Regulatory changes in different countries regarding self-consumption and growing public concern about the environment are encouraging the establishment of community microgrids. These community microgrids integrate a large number of small-scale distributed energy resources and offers a solution to enhance power system reliability and resilience. This work proposes a geographically-based split of the community microgrids into clusters of members that tend to have similar consumption and generation profiles, mimicking the most typical layout of cities. Assuming a community microgrid divided into clusters, a two-layer architecture is developed to facilitate the greater penetration of distributed energy resources in an efficient way. The first layer, referred as the market layer, is responsible for creating local energy markets with the aim of maximising the economic benefits for community microgrid members. The second layer is responsible for the network reconfiguration, which is based on the energy balance within each cluster. This layer complies with the IEC 61850 communication standard, in order to control commercial sectionalizing and tie switches. This allows the community microgrid network to be reconfigured to minimise energy exchanges with the main grid, without requiring interaction with the distributed system operator. To implement this two-layer energy management strategy, an aperiodic market approach based on Blockchain technology, and the additional functionality offered by Smart Contracts is adopted. This embraces the concept of energy communities since it decentralizes the control and eliminates intermediaries. The use of aperiodic control techniques helps to overcome the challenges of using Blockchain technology in terms of storage, computational requirements and member privacy. The scalability and modularity of the Smart Contract-based system allow each cluster of members to be designed by tailoring the system to their specific needs. The implementation of this strategy is based on low-cost off-the-shelf devices, such as Raspberry Pi 4 Model B boards, which operate as Blockchain nodes of community microgrid members. Finally, the strategy has been validated by emulating two use cases based on the IEEE 123-node system network model highlighting the benefits of the proposal.

Nihar Ranjan Pradhan, Akhilendra Pratap Singh, Sahil Verma, Kavita Kavita · 7 authors

With the electric power grid experiencing a rapid shift to the smart grid paradigm over a deregulated energy market, Internet of Things (IoT) based solutions are gaining prominence and innovative Peer To Peer (P2P) energy trading at micro-level are being deployed. Such advancement, however leave traditional security models vulnerable and pave the path for Blockchain, an Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) with its decentralized, open and transparency characteristics as a viable alternative. However, due to deregulation in energy trading markets, massive volumes of micro transactions are required to be supported, which become a performance bottleneck with existing Blockchain solution such as Hyperledger, Ethereum and so on. In this paper, a lightweight 'Tangle' based framework, namely IOTA (Third generation DLT) is employed for designing an energy trading market that uses Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) based solution that not only alleviates the reward overhead for micro-transactions but also provides scalability, quantum-proof, and high throughput of such transactions at low confirmation latency. Furthermore the Masked Authentication Messaging (MAM) protocol is used over the IOTA P2P energy trading framework that allows energy producer and consumer to share the data while maintaining the confidentiality, and facilitates the data accessibility. The Raspberry Pi 3 board along with voltage sensor (INA219) used for the setting up light node and publishing and fetching data from the Tangle. The results of the obtained benchmarking indicate low confirmation latency, high throughput, system with Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum. Moreover, the effect of transaction rate decreases when the IOTA bundle size increases more than 10. For bundle size 5 and 10 it behaves absolutely better than any other platform. The speedy confirmation time of transactions in IOTA, is most suitable for peer to peer energy trading scenarios. This study serves as a guideline for deploying, end-to-end transaction with IOTA Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and improving the performance of Blockchain in the energy sector under various operating conditions.

Di Huang, Shixi Ma, Dengji Zhou, Chenyu Zhang · 8 authors

The blockchain is a distributed database whose data are stored and managed in every node in the network. By design, the information of trade records is difficult to tamper. Therefore, it can deal with the trust problem without a central operator. Blockchain technology has brought about major reform in the financial field and has been paid more and more attention in many fields. The combination of blockchain technology and energy trade seems to have good prospects due to their common features of distribution, diversity and marketization. In this paper, a new decentralized energy trading framework based on blockchain technology is presented and analyzed. In this framework, four basic participators in the market are set, which are the consumer, supplier, speculator (with energy storage capacity) and regulator. In addition, the order format and price clearing mechanisms are designed accordingly. The new framework can accommodate a large number of entities and enable them to achieve better economic benefits. Small examples are used to analyze the framework. It is concluded that this technology has significant under-researched potential to support and enhance the efficiency gains of the energy revolution, and areas for future research are identified.

Hugo Algarvio

The worldwide targets for carbon-neutral societies increased the penetration of distributed generation and storage. Smart cities now play a key role in achieving these targets by considering the alliances of their demand and supply assets as local citizen energy communities. These communities need to have enough weight to trade electricity in wholesale markets. Trading of electricity can be done in spot markets or by bilateral contracts involving customers and suppliers. This paper is devoted to bilateral contracting, which is modeled as a negotiation process involving an iterative exchange of offers and counter-offers. This article focuses on local citizen energy communities. Specifically, it presents team and single-agent negotiation models, where each member has its sets of strategies and tactics and also its decision model. Community agents are equipped with intra-team strategies and decision protocols. To evaluate the benefits of CECs, models of both coalition formation and management have been adapted. This paper also describes a case study on forward bilateral contracts, involving a retailer agent and three different types of citizen energy communities. The results demonstrate the benefits of CECs during the negotiation of private bilateral contracts of electricity. Furthermore, they also demonstrate that in the case of using a representative strategy, the selection of the mediator may be critical for achieving a good deal.

Tamara Roth, Manuel Utz, Felix Baumgarte, Alexander Rieger · 6 authors

Blockchain is no longer just a hype technology, and effective blockchain applications exist in many industries. Yet, few blockchain projects have been successful in Europe’s energy systems. To identify the reasons for this slow progress, we reviewed the recent energy literature regarding the use of blockchain, analyzed industry reports, and interviewed experts who have conducted blockchain projects in Europe’s energy systems. Our analysis reveals eight common use cases, their expected benefits, and the challenges encountered. We find that the expected benefits are often little more than generic hopes, largely outweighed by technological, organizational, and regulatory challenges. The identified challenges are significant and numerous, especially for peer-to-peer trading and microgrid use cases. The fact that few projects have yet provided robust evidence for profitable use suggests there is still a rocky road ahead. Moreover, many use cases appear to require more than just blockchain technology to succeed. In particular, privacy and scalability requirements often call for systems in which blockchains only take a backseat. This realization may be essential for the future use of blockchain technology in energy systems – in Europe and beyond.