Seyed Amir Alavi, Mehrnaz Javadipour, Ardavan Rahimian, Kamyar Mehran
Abstract The privacy of electricity consumers has become one of the most critical subjects in designing smart meters and their proliferation. In this work, a multilayer architecture has been proposed for anonymous data collection from smart meters, which provides: (1) The anonymity of information for thirdâparty data consumers; (2) Secure communication to utility provider network for billing purposes; (3) Online control of data sharing for endâusers; (4) Low communication costs based on available Internet of things (IoT) communication protocols. The core elements of this architecture are, first, the digital twin equivalent of the cyberâphysical system and, second, the Tangle distributed ledger network with IOTA cryptocurrency. In this architecture, digital twin models are updated in realâtime by information received from trusted nodes of the Tangle distributed network anonymously. A smallâscale laboratory prototype based on this architecture has been developed using the dSPACE SCALEXIO realâtime simulator and openâsource software tools to prove the feasibility of the proposed solution. The numerical results confirm that after a few seconds of anomaly detection, the microgrid was fully stabilized around its operating point with less than 5% deviation during the transition time.
Younes Zahraoui, Tarmo KorÔtko, Argo Rosin, Hannes Agabus
Electricity generation using distributed renewable energy systems is becoming increasingly common due to the significant increase in energy demand and the high operation of conventional power systems with fossil fuels. The introduction of distributed renewable energy systems in the electric grid is crucial for delivering future zero-emissions energy systems and is cost-effective for promoting and facilitating large-scale generation for prosumers. However, these deployments are forcing changes in traditional energy markets, with growing attention given to transactive energy networks that enable energy trading between prosumers and consumers for more significant benefits in the cluster mode. This change raises operational and market challenges. In recent years, extensive research has been conducted on developing different local energy market models that enable energy trading and provide the opportunity to minimize the operational costs of the distributed energy resources by promoting localized market management. Local energy markets provide a stepping stone toward fully transactive energy systems that bring adequate flexibility by reducing usersâ demand and reflecting the energy price in the grid. Designing a stable regulatory framework for local electricity markets is one of the major concerns in the electricity market regulation policies for the efficient and reliable delivery of electric power, maximizing social welfare, and decreasing electric infrastructure expenditure. This depends on the changing needs of the power system, objectives, and constraints. Generally, the optimal design of the local market requires both short-term efficiencies in the optimal operation of the distributed energy resources and long-term efficiency investment for high quality. In this paper, a comprehensive literature review of the main layers of microgrids is introduced, highlighting the role of the market layer. Critical aspects of the energy market are systematically presented and discussed, including market design, market mechanism, market player, and pricing mechanism. We also intend to investigate the role and application of distributed ledger technologies in energy trading. In the end, we illuminate the mathematical foundation of objective functions, optimization approaches, and constraints in the energy market, along with a brief overview of the solver tools to formulate and solve the optimization problem.
Pavan Ramchandra Padghan, Arul Daniel Samuel, Raja Pitchaimuthu
With the liberalization of the Electricity Market (EM), a secure demand response program (DRP) for real-time decisions is needed to enhance the effectiveness, stability, and security of the EM. Customers play a crucial role in DRP as they can offer flexibility when the market demands it. Nevertheless, the aggregator does not fully understand the customerâs available DR capacity to accurately bid on market transactions. To do so, the article presents a smart contract based on an optimal bidding strategy for an aggregator that considers customer receptiveness. First, we endeavor to determine the customerâs receptiveness concerning various incentives where the home energy management system (HEMS) introduces the employed load adjustment for electrical appliances. Second, the aggregator adopts a rational approach to employing the optimal day-ahead bidding strategy and scheduling for energy storage systems (ESS) to exploit economic benefits. The execution of Ethereum smart contracts in market transactions ensures transparency, security, and superior reliability. A test case with realistic data is presented to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed bidding strategy. The results confirm that the aggregator determines the optimal bidding value for the next day. An aggregator could generate a profit of $23 from the bidding strategy. The regional transmission system operator delivers 485 kWh of flexibility, of which consumers account for 60% and ESS for 40%, generating a profit of $40 per day. Prosumers selling electricity to the aggregator would make an average profit of $6 per day. Thus, the execution of DRP and a bidding strategy results in economic benefits for the aggregator and other entities in the EM.
Bozhi Wang, Jinfei Xu, Ke Jin, C. L. Philip Chen · 9 authors
With the spread of distributed renewable energy, residents are shifting from being mere consumers to being energy producers and consumers. This role shift poses challenges to the electricity trading mechanism that connects distributed renewable energy sources to the grid. In this paper, a new efficient and secure blockchain-based distributed community energy trading mechanism is proposed, called CE-SDT. Our system is proved to be stable and scalable. It can also help shift loads and power peaks and reduce customer costs by 60%. As a result, our proposed blockchain-based trading mechanism, as compared to the centralized trading mechanism, is applied to microgrids formed by distributed renewable energy sources, not only obtaining greater economic benefits but also reducing the carbon footprint of residents, and furthermore, it promotes low or zero-carbon configurations of the power system, thereby achieving certain environmental benefits.
Liaqat Ali, M. Imran Azim, Jan Peters, Vivek Bhandari · 8 authors
This paper presents the application of a community battery energy storage system (CBESS)-integrated microgrid (MG) in a blockchain-enabled local energy market (LEM). The proposed LEM balances the community energy requirement while facilitating frequent peer-to-peer (P2P) energy transactions between several energy users in the presence of both energy supplier and energy operator. The architecture is formulated by taking a number of local market and network constraints, that include residential battery energy storage system (RBESS) constraints; CBESS constraints; P2P traded price constraints; P2P traded power constraints; margin constraints of the stakeholders; power grid export and import constraints; and network energy balance constraints, so as to not only incentivise energy users but also reduce import/export from/to power grid while keeping the margins of energy supplier and energy operator unaffected. Different types of transactions data including energy usersâ P2P pricing bids and P2P traded energy volume are also stored in the blockchain database. Further, the developed LEM framework is also validated through a case study executed on an actual Australian power grid network, comprising 260 residential energy users; two energy suppliers; an energy operator; and a CBESS, and the performance of the proposed P2P trading-based LEM strategy is compared with the existing business-as-usual (BAU) that directs energy users to buy/sell energy at the time-of-use (ToU)/ feed-in-tariff (FiT) rate. The extensive and comparative simulation results confirm the superior performance of the proposed LEM mechanism in terms of minimising energy usersâ electricity bill; lowering power grid import and export; and retaining margins of energy suppliers and the energy operator; and thus, emphasise its application suitability in the current electricity market.
Godwin C. Okwuibe, Thomas Brenner, Peter Tzscheutschler, Thomas Hamacher
Local energy markets (LEMs) provide opportunity to handle the challenges arising from the lower grid level while using the traditional top-down approach to manage distributed generated renewable energy resources. Blockchain based local energy markets (LEMs) have been introduced in recent years as a way to enable local consumers/prosumers to trade their energy locally in a distributed and highly secured manner in an LEM. However, there are still some challenges regarding the main factors that can drive local consumers/prosumers to participate in a blockchain based LEM, optimal community size and prosumer to consumer ratio for an efficient LEM. Also, there is still no information on how the quantifying factors for participation on a blockchain based LEM can affect the performance of an LEM. This paper presents a survey and simulation based analysis of quantifying factors for participation in a blockchain based LEM. The survey was distributed among local consumers/prosumers and a total of 261 responses were received from the responders. The results from the responders were analyzed using a Python code based statistical analysis model. The simulation based analysis was conducted using a community based LEM model and evaluated using data received from a combination of German household profiles and standard load profiles. The survey results showed that the major drive for local consumers/prosumers to participate on blockchain based LEM is their willingness to support renewable energy integration, transparency and trust offered by a blockchain network. On the other hand, the simulation based analysis showed that small and medium communities with prosumers to consumer ratios between 0.3 to 0.5 create more economic and technical benefits for local consumers/prosumers compared to large communities. The community based simulation results were modelled together with the survey results to determine how the individual quantifying factors for participating in a blockchain based LEM can affect the performance of an LEM.
In this paper, a novel microgrid (MG) restoration framework is proposed based on Blockchain Technology (BCT). The proposed method consists of a two-stage restoration process. In the first stage, stable Blockchain (BC) links are formulated with the grid-forming Distributed Energy Resources (DERs). In the second stage, load assignment is carried out based on the priority level of the load. The miners run through the consensus mechanism to accommodate the priority-based loads to their corresponding BC links. The consensus mechanism provides the value of an index, known as Combined Stability Measurement (CSM). The BC link, with the higher CSM value, is declared as the winner of the consensus mechanism. Subsequently, the targeted priority load is assigned to that winner BC link. The proposed BCT-based restoration framework is tested with the modified IEEE-33 and IEEE-69 bus test systems using the Ethereum blockchain platform.
DC microgrids with distributed architectures inevitably encounter the threats of communication constraints and cyber attacks, and there is little research to address these two communication irregularities simultaneously. To provide DC microgrids with maximum resistance to communication constraints and cyber attacks, a distributed predictive secure control method based on blockchain protocol is proposed in this paper. The proposed control approach is the first attempt to address cyber attacks with a hybrid of data and models, improving the resilience and robustness of DC microgrids. With the help of practical Byzantine ideas, the proposed strategy preserves the resilience strengths of the blockchain against corruption and discards its shortcomings of low real-time performance, significantly enhancing the security without compromising the dynamic performance of the system by active intervention. Subsequently, a bound on the communication delay induced by the blockchain network under the expected security index is given based on the theoretical analysis. Unlike the existing practice of passively tolerating communication delays and packet dropouts, the predictive control method proposed in this paper actively compensates for them experienced by DC microgrids. Then, an analytical model of the closed-loop DC microgrid system is developed, and stability analysis is presented accordingly. Finally, several experimental tests performed on a PV-based DC microgrid hardware system are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.
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.
Miguel Gayo-Abeleira, Carlos Santos, Francisco J. RodrĂguez, Pedro MartıÌn · 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.
This paper presents the PEACEFULNESS software platform (Platform for transvErse evAluation of Control stratEgies For mULti-eNErgy Smart gridS), an open framework dedicated to multi-energy smart-grids, based on a techno-economic model that integrates economic considerations (contracts). As such, it is mainly oriented towards the evaluation of multi-energy grid supervision strategies, that is, energy management, and the corresponding policies and legal organization. The main goal is then to highlight the various possible behaviors and strategies to organize the probable future interconnections between the different energy carriers. In particular, it aims at investigating how to maximize the use of renewable energy sources (RES), using Demand Side Management (DSM) techniques and energy storage, in a shared economy context. The open-source tool PEACEFULNESS, written in Python, is described here in detail. It combines a top-down description of the energy networks and connections between the various agents (energy providers, distribution system operators, aggregators, consumers, producers, prosumers, etc.), together with a techno-economic bottom-up description for all devices. Here, both public databases and usersâ data (basic heating demands or based on building modeling) can be used, as well as generic or more specific models (e.g., PV panels with constant or temperature-dependent efficiency). One of its major unique features compared with other tools is that it extends the use of DSM techniques to various energy grids which can also interact together. Furthermore, different economic models can be set for both the aggregators and the customers, and even within these groups. As a last competitive advantage, PEACEFULNESS allows the user to simulate the operation and supervision of tens up to hundreds of thousands of agents. It also provides a reporting system giving access to all the data, with a configurable granularity and frequency for the retained indicators. Finally, several validation cases are presented, followed by a series of test cases with increasing size: a smart home, a smart district (2 000 dwellings) and a smart community (50 000 dwellings).
Abstract Due to the growing number of Distributed Energy Resources and new electrical loads at the sectoral contact points, novel organisational forms such as Local Energy Markets arise to deal with increasing complexity in the energy system. However, these markets are radically different from traditional energy markets, as they often allow individual prosumers to trade with each other via a peerâtoâpeer scheme. To guarantee tamperâproof settlement, an increasing number of these markets feature a distributed ledger technology. This paper analyses different design variants of peerâtoâpeer markets, focusing specifically on the allocation mechanism under network constraints as these mechanisms constitute the core component of a market design. We assess these designs concerning user acceptance, economic performance, practicability, and their ability to relieve grid congestion. Further key performance indicators also cover communal revenues or welfare distribution. For this purpose, we developed an agentâbased simulation framework, which builds on data from three German reference municipalities derived from a novel clustering approach. Besides a consolidated presentation of the results, we highlight current implementation obstacles and identify promising concepts for further research.
One of the biggest challenges for decarbonizing the grid is allowing those parties with access to distributed energy resources to provide necessary energy and market participant information in a secure manner to support grid and market operations. Multiple entities, protocols, communication networks, and devices present significant challenges for market operators responsible for data governance such as confidentiality and data integrity. One approach is managing parties within and across networked microgrids with a Distribution System Operator (DSO) responsible for facilitating a transactive energy marketplace for their customers. An identity-based cybersecurity mesh fabric using a distributed ledger for delivering edge services was recently demonstrated to ensure data from two networked microgrids and a DSO could be shared across the various systems. A system that included a private blockchain for data governance and access control services needed for these secure interactions was designed and demonstrated. This paper highlights the overall microgrid data flows and data transactions along with the implementation considerations of cybersecurity controls across already installed assets, simulated microgrids, and smart buildings.
The proliferation of renewable generation brings challenges to the power supply-demand balance. To relieve the power fluctuations caused by photovoltaic (PV) generation variability, a multi-timescale allocation algorithm that considers the allocation of available energy and power is proposed. Contracted demand response energy (CDRE) refers to the regulation energy, which is specified in contracts in advance, that can be used to relieve power fluctuations. First, the capacity of CDRE and available regulation power (RP) provided by load aggregators (LAs) that aggregate different demand response resources (DRRs) are estimated. In hour-timescale, CDRE is allocated to maximize the control economy of all participants, where a sample average approximation-based Stackelberg game is proposed to optimize the behavior of each participant based on considering PV generation uncertainty. In minute-timescale, RP is allocated to smooth the power fluctuations and minimize the power deviations based on the allocated CDRE results. Simulation on a modified IEEE-24 bus system verifies the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in terms of reducing the power supply-demand imbalance with maximum revenue.
Decarbonisation of energy sector is crucial to deliver the future net zero energy system with promoting and facilitating the large-scale electrification of end-user sectors. It is necessary to provide sustainable, cost-effective, resilient and scalable energy solutions to exploit the power of citizens to contribute to the clean energy transition, increasing the flexibility of the overall energy system. Energy community, as the new actor, create an integrated pan energy market by bringing together the local consumers and energy market players. However, diversity of energy community brings huge challenges in integration of decentralized renewables with regulated framework, interaction of decentralized marketplaces, as well as interoperability of the cross-border energy sectors with privacy, security and incentives. This paper intends to provide an in-depth investigation on the role of microgrid and blockchain, alone and together, in facilitating the energy community as the âenabling frameworkâ to boost the potential solutions of electrification in the transportation, building, and industrial sectors, as well as rural/remote areas and islands towards a networking green ecosystem. This paper serves as a comprehensive reference to understand the modern microgrid on its control and communication technology with integration of blockchain services in promoting the techno-socio-economic innovations for the restructuring of the sustainable energy supply chain.
Nathan Patrizi, Sara Kathryn LaTouf, Eirini Eleni Tsiropoulou, Symeon Papavassiliou
Modern smart grid systems exploit a two-way interaction paradigm between the utility and the electricity user and promote the role of prosumer, as a new user type, able to generate and sell energy, or consume energy. Within such a setting, the prosumers and their interactions with the microgrid system become of high significance for its efficient operation. In this article, to model the corresponding interactions, we introduce a labor economics-based framework by exploiting the principles of contract theory, that jointly achieves the satisfaction of the various interacting system entities, i.e., the microgrid operator (MGO) and the prosumers. The MGO offers personalized rewards to the sellers and buyers, to incentivize them to sell and purchase energy, respectively. To provide a stable and efficient operation point, while aiming at jointly satisfying the profit and requirements of the involved competing parties, optimal personalized contracts, i.e., rewards and amount of sold/purchased energy, are determined, by formulating and solving contract-theoretic optimization problems between the MGO and the sellers or buyers. The analysis is provided for both cases of complete and incomplete information availability regarding the prosumersâ types. Detailed numerical results are presented to demonstrate the operation characteristics of the proposed framework under diverse scenarios.
Electric power systems are transitioning towards a decentralized paradigm with the engagement of active prosumers (both producers and consumers) through using distributed multi-energy sources. This paper proposes a novel Blockchain based peer-to-peer trading architecture which integrates negotiation-based auction and pricing mechanisms in local electricity markets, through automating, standardizing, and self-enforcing trading procedures using smart contracts. The negotiation of the volume and price of the peer-to-peer electricity trading among prosumers is modeled as a cooperative game, and the interaction between a retailer and its ensemble of prosumers is modeled as a Stackelberg game. The flexibility provision from residential heating systems is incorporated into the energy scheduling of prosumers. Case studies demonstrate that the proposed architecture in local electricity markets helps improve local energy balance. Flexibility from the residential heating systems enables prosumers to be more responsive to the variation of retail electricity prices. The proposed model reduces 41.24% of average daily electricity costs for individual prosumers or consumers compared to the case without the peer-to-peer electricity trading.
Sabrina Lee Chartier, Vinod Kumar Venkiteswaran, Shriram S. Rangarajan, E.R. Collins · 5 authors
Microgrids are emerging throughout the world as a means of integrating decentralized, renewable energy power generation. The flexibility of this customer-driven, behind the meter solution allows it to address unique challenges. This variability that drives microgrid adoption is the same thing that keeps them from being categorized and repeatable. This lack of specific modeling leads to a stalling in financing and wide-scale adoption. By analyzing the microgrid system development, evolution, architecture, integration zones, technological advances, and business models, a clearer picture of how these entities are intertwined emerges. Several case studies of deployed microgrids will showcase the cutting-edge solutions they apply. The future implications of this new energy revolution will be highlighted and shown to create an energy generation equilibrium and the significant role played by microgrids in this new energy revolution. Although many compilations of research work on microgrids have been previously presented by various reviewers, most of them are specific to an electrical or power quality-related issue, which addresses a discrete audience. This work only includes within its scope a general outlook of microgrids and the present-day challenges in its use of rural/urban renewable energy production and distribution. The results allowed for the researchers to conclude that microgrids have emerged as a great solution in situations where energy has to be transmitted from a decentralized system to a centralized system. Challenges will arise in the microgrid management and government laws and regulations if rectified microgrids can lead to an equilibrium between decentralized and centralized bulk energy networks.