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1,357 results · page 31 of 57
Yongxiu He, Wei Xiong, Binyou Yang, Haiyan Yang · 7 authors
No abstract is available for this record.
Ugur Halden, Ümit Cali, Marthe Fogstad Dynge, Joseph Stekli · 5 authors
Advancements in material science and production technologies of solar photovoltaics (PV) system components, have obvious impacts in terms of Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) reductions over time. Beside such technologies in physical sciences, digitalization technologies have increasingly positive impacts on the cost efficient operation and investment planning of the solar energy investments and keep the current cost decline trajectory for the PV industry. One option to achieve this may be through digital financial innovations such as Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) based crowdfunding for project finance. This option would enable multiple small investors to offer loans with lower interest rates and longer debt tenors than traditional financiers, such as banks, while increasing the acceptable debt fraction for a project due to the higher risk tolerance of individual investors coupled with the risk reduction that this innovation could allow. This new aspect of the digital partial ownership of the energy projects is demonstrated using a functional DLT-based crowdfunding mechanism. Furthermore, impacts of the proposed approach is demonstrated by calculating the LCOE values for the European countries by comparing with the traditional investment options. According to the findings of this study digitalization technologies especially DLT has positive impact in terms of reducing the financial costs and also LCOE values of solar energy projects. Additionally, these estimated cost values are used for analyzing the grid parity of PV systems in each assessed country. This article presents a digitization based methodology that has a high potential to accelerate the Digital Green Shift in future.
Hany A. Abdelsalam, Anurag K. Srivastava, Abdelrahman Eldosouky
With the development of distributed and renewable energy resources and smart grids, energy management systems that allow electricity prosumers to schedule their power usage, are seen as a prominent solution for reducing electricity costs. This paper presents a novel blockchain-based mechanism to incentivize prosumers to save energy, while preserving their privacy. In the proposed mechanism, each prosumer utilizes an energy management system that is based on the percentage power change (PPC) at each hour of the day. The use of PPC values allows the proposed blockchain to preserve the privacy of the prosumers as no sensitive information is shared. The calculated PPC values are shared among the prosumers. The prosumer with the minimum PPC value is selected as the validator of the blockchain, which is responsible for creating the next block of the blockchain. The problem of approving the validator, by other prosumers, is formulated using a novel zero-metric weighted average consensus. The communication model required to reach this consensus is investigated and the consensus value is analytically derived. Multiple test systems with varying number of prosumers are simulated and analyzed. The results demonstrate the capability of the proposed mechanism to sustain energy while preserving privacy in a scalable manner.
Manuel Sivianes, Carlos Bordons
No abstract is available for this record.
Guanyu Gao, Chengru Song, T.G. T. A. Bandara, Meng Shen · 8 authors
Microgrids, gaining traction from rising distributed generation for carbon reduction, demand novel solutions to regulate on- and off-grid operations, as well as both energy and monetary transfers between the microgrid and the central grid and among different microgrid participants. This research aims to develop and validate an intelligent microgrid management system to secure the competitiveness of Singapore’s energy market, by leveraging the inherent synergy between two emerging technologies, i.e., blockchain for Peer-to-Peer (P2P) solar power trading and fog computing for grid infrastructure management. For this vision, we have developed FogChain, an integrative, cost-effective, and scalable microgrid operating system (MGOS), consisting of three technical service layers: 1) a novel microgrid information infrastructure based on the fog-computing paradigm (i.e., intelligence on edge); 2) a blockchain-based microgrid service layer, providing smart contract and decentralized control capabilities for grid application development; and 3) a microgrid application layer (i.e., P2P energy trading) over the blockchain-based grid service. This MGOS would fundamentally transform how solar power is traded among participating electricity prosumers, leading to potentially new operational and business models. We have implemented the FogChain system and conducted extensive experiments to verify its performance advantages. Our results demonstrate that FogChain can efficiently process energy auction among 1000 participants with 1.1 s delay on average, reduce transmission cost up to 20% under the loss-aware trading mechanism, and reduce the solar yield prediction error to 0.11. Our system prototype suggests that FogChain provides a promising solution for efficient decentralized energy trading and intelligent distributed control for microgrids.
Arman Kolahan, Seyed Reza Maadi, Zahra Teymouri, Corrado Schenone
Smart homes, connected through a network, can optimize the energy consumption and general load shape of their area. In this work, a blockchain-based smart solution is presented for demand-side management of residential buildings in a neighborhood to improve Peaks to Average Ratios (PAR) of power load, reduce energy consumption, and increase the thermal comfort of occupants by modeling heating, illumination, and appliance systems. For real-time power and temperature monitoring of the neighborhood, a transient numerical physical model has been developed. The simulator has been validated with data measured from a building in Northern Italy. Then, a neighborhood with 2,000 households has been modeled for different occupancy patterns, initial values, and boundary conditions. Two different control scenarios, namely basic and smart, have been considered. In the basic scenario, everything is managed by occupants except the boiler, which is controlled by the indoor temperature of the home. Instead, in the smart scenario, a blockchain-based network has been introduced for buildings to exchange a parameter called the Probability of the Next Hour (PNH). Ethereum Solidity has been deployed for smart contract development in the blockchain. The results show that using blockchain-connected smart controllers aimed at demand-side management can improve PAR, comfort level, and energy efficiency of buildings, which can bring about CO2 reduction on an urban and even global scale.
Claudia Antal, Tudor Cioara, Marcel Antal, Vlad Mihailescu · 13 authors
Large-scale deployment of renewable energy sources brings new challenges for smart grid management requiring the development of decentralized solutions and active participation of prosumer and non-grid-owned assets. Local energy flexibility markets can help in monitoring energy flows, motivate changes in prosumers’ energy supply and demand, achieving local energy balance, and optimization of electricity flows. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based decentralized energy flexibility market enabling small-scale prosumers to trade in a peer-to-peer fashion their flexibility in terms of load modulation concerning the baseline energy profiles. We have defined an energy flexibility token for digitizing the flexibility of prosumers allowing to be traded on the market as an asset and self-enforcing smart contracts for decentralized market operation including functions such as the placement of flexibility bids/offers, trading session management, or energy and financial settlement of energy flexibility transactions. For matching the flexibility bids and offers, a solution based on a greedy heuristic and a bipartite graph is proposed for minimizing the number of flexibility transactions and reducing the blockchain-associated costs, while Oracles are used to assure its secure integration with the blockchain. The blockchain-based flexibility market was validated with the help of the Terni city Distribution System Operator, showing promising results in enabling the self-consumption of renewable energy generated in a small scale urban micro-grid considering live energy monitoring data, and in assuring the local balancing of the demand side in a simulated environment considering many market participants and historical energy data.
Mingyu Yan, Mohammad Shahidehpour, Ahmed Alabdulwahab, Abdullah Abusorrah · 9 authors
This paper proposes a blockchain application for transacting energy and carbon allowance in networked microgrids (MGs). MGs submit trading energy and carbon allowance data to the centralized distribution system operator (DSO) operation, which would optimize the provision of energy and carbon allowance trading among MGs for satisfying power distribution network constraints. The hourly demand response along with onsite MG generation and the DSO’s trading exchanges with ISO are considered among market options to maximize MG payoffs and satisfy distribution network constraints. A cooperative game with externalities is applied to model the market behavior of networked MGs. A two-stage payoff allocation problem is devised to allocate the grand coalition payoff to participating MGs. A solution algorithm is proposed which consists of column-and-constraint generation (C&CG) and Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions to solve the proposed two-stage market optimization problem with acceptable computational performance. Also, blockchain is applied to provide secure and effective transaction settlements and transparent distribution market operations in the proposed transactive energy and carbon allowance trading strategy. The proposed centralized transactive market is tested on a 4-MG system, the IEEE 33-bus system, and the IEEE 123-bus system. The numerical results show the effectiveness of the proposed method in incentivizing MGs to trade energy and carbon allowance while satisfying the distribution network constraints.
Soheil Saraji, Christelle Khalaf
The current energy transition from a fossil-fuel-based economy to a zero-carbon has significantly accelerated in recent years, as the largest emitters have committed to achieving carbon-neutral goals in the next 20-30 years. The energy industry transition is characterized by modernization through digital technologies, increased renewable energy generation, and environmental sustainability. Blockchain technology can play a significant role in providing secure digital distributed platforms facilitating digitization, decarbonization, and decentralization of the energy systems. Several promising blockchain applications in the energy sector are under research and development, including peer-to-peer energy trading; carbon monitoring, management, and trading; and IoT-enabled electric grid management. However, several challenges are slowing down the commercialization of these applications, including outdated legislation and regulations, slow pace of adaptation from the traditional energy industry, and risks associated with the new, untested technology.
G. Divya, P. Supraja
Smart grid is an innovation in a communication network, interconnected power framework, advanced control technology, and smart metering has been applied to work on the usage of renewable energy resources and alleviate the energy emergency somehow. Blockchain is basically a decentralized accounting ledger with the potential to enable, manage, track and verify thousands of energy transactions per second. The blockchain energy market is proposed to be utilized by networks that share a nanogrid. The application permits nanogrid participants that have an abundance of electrical energy, to offer that energy to different clients of the nanogrid. The application gives a decentralized marketplace for executing electrical energy. Since this blockchain energy market is implemented by Ethereum smart contract, it suffers from the high operating costs that result from the contract's high gas consumption. Ethereum smart contracts are implemented by reworking on acceptoffer function to verifies its validity and withdraw function which uses a single function call for multiple energy transfer contracts to decrease the operation cost.
Jingshi Cui, Nan Gu, Chenye Wu
Due to the increasing penetration of renewable energies, the energy imbalance market (EIM) is proposed to better facilitate the real time supply demand balance in the power system, by rewarding the market participants with better forecasts for the market conditions (i.e., the mismatch in the system). Together with many other financial instruments in the electricity sector, EIM calls for the market participants to strive for improving their forecast abilities. This increases the need for a data market in place. However, data market, compared with conventional commodity markets, has numerous unique impediments, such as distrust and data mutability issues. To tackle these challenges, we design blockchain enabled data transmission for centralized and decentralized EIM, respectively. We submit that although decentralized market is often a trade off between autonomy and market efficiency, there are conditions when decentralized market and centralized EIM achieve the same efficiency. Numerical studies further suggest, even when the conditions are violated, the efficiency loss in the decentralized EIM is still acceptable.
Lei Wang, Yichao Ma, Liuzhu Zhu, Xuli Wang · 6 authors
No abstract is available for this record.
Tonghe Wang, Haochen Hua, Zhiqian Wei, Junwei Cao
No abstract is available for this record.
Yu‐Chung Tsao, Thuy-Linh Vu
Blockchain and smart contract technology is advancing rapidly and, as many companies and industries are stepping up to adopt the technology, it is a worthy subject of research. This study presents a decentralized microgrid model that considers blockchain and smart contract technology. We consider a microgrid consisting of two players: a power distribution company (DC) and an electricity prosumer. The cost-benefit analysis of utilising blockchain and smart contract technology is assessed through an evaluation model for the two players. Further, to encourage the prosumer to generate renewable energy, a credit period that allows the prosumer to defer payments is provided by outside banks. A game-theoretical method is applied to analyse the decision-making by the two players, seeking to maximise their own profits. The DC acts as a leader who determines the electricity price and blockchain technology investment level, and the prosumer is a follower who determines how much renewable energy should be generated. The results show that the adoption of blockchain and smart contract technology benefits both the DC and prosumer in a decentralized microgrid. Further, several examples are provided to illustrate the model and obtain managerial insights.
Misagh Dehghani Ghotbabadi, Saeed Daneshvar Dehnavi, Hadi Fotoohabadi, Hasan Mehrjerdi · 5 authors
Abstract This paper tries to address the optimal operation of networked microgrid from the reliability perspective in a correlated atmosphere for the wind generators. The suggested approach performs based on unscented transformation in the form of a nonlinear projection and the heuristic method as the optimizer. The proposed structure is arranged as a complex constraint optimization problem with several targets seeing the varied objectives such as energy not supplied, system interruption frequency, system interruption duration and energy losses. Owing to the interrelated natural surroundings of multi‐microgrids, it is a necessity for the microgrids to let the each other access the operation info and with the central unit. In this situation, it is quite wise to provide a secured construction made of the blockchain for the assurance of the reliability and adequate security of data sharing in the microgrids. With the aim of validation of the proposed model, an IEEE standard system is considered and divided into four interrelated microgrids with one side connection to the main grid. The simulation results show the high capability of the proposed framework for enhancing the operation and reliability indices. Moreover, it is seen that almost 0.6% and 0.77% additional cost is imposed to the system in the deterministic framework in the first and second scenarios, respectively.
Xiaohui Wang, Peng Liu, Zhixiang Ji
With the release of the electricity sales side, large-scale small-capacity distributed power generation units are connected to the distribution side, forming multi-type market entities such as microgrids, integrated energy systems, and virtual power plants. With the large-scale integration of distributed energy, the energy market under the energy internet is different from a traditional transmission grid. It is currently developing in the direction of diversified entities and commodities, a flat structure, and a flexible and competitive multi-agent market mechanism. In this context, this study analyzes the value of combining blockchain and the electricity market presents the design of a blockchain trading framework for multi-agent cooperation and sharing of the energy internet. The nodes in market transactions are modeled through power system modeling in the physical layer and the transaction consensus strategy in the cyber layer; moreover, the nodes are verified in a modified IEEE 13 testing feeder of a distribution network. A transaction example is demonstrated using the multi-agent cooperation and sharing transaction platform based on the Ethereum private blockchain.
Shubhani Aggarwal, Neeraj Kumar
In this paper, we propose a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) energy trading scheme between EVs and the SPs to manage the demand response in V2G environment. Unlike the traditional schemes, which consists of complex energy-transportation meshes, the proposed scheme achieves a balance between demand and response by providing incentives to EVs out of their self-interests. However, the online transactions security and privacy protection of EVs poses challenges with respect to confidentiality and integrity preservation. To cope up with the issues, we design a consortium blockchain-based scheme to ensure secure energy transactions between EVs and the SPs without trusted third-party intervention. Moreover, the energy pricing and the amount of traded energy problems for demand response are solved by a double auction mechanism to maximize the social welfare. Numerical results based on a real-time implementation on a private Ethereum network having smart contract demonstrated that the auction-based mechanism achieves social welfare maximization with privacy protection of online transactions between EVs and the SPs. The results obtained show that the rate of convergence, scalability metric average latency, and standard deviation of the energy transactions have been improved by approximately 18.18%, 15%, and 28.1%, respectively in comparison to the existing schemes. Moreover, security and privacy analysis of the proposed scheme shows that it improves the transaction security substantially in comparison to the existing state-of-the-art proposals.
Xiaoyan Zhang, Jingwei Chen, Yong Zhou, Shunrong Jiang
Recently, blockchain-based transactive energy systems are introduced into energy trading scenarios which efficiently alleviates drawbacks in centralized energy trading systems such as low compatibility, poor flexibility, and single point of failure. Nevertheless, there still exists performance bottlenecks such as privacy leakage and low trading throughput, which limits the wide application of the blockchain-based energy system to the real world. To solve these concerns, this paper proposes a privacy-preserving cross-chain payment scheme for blockchain-based energy trading. We firstly adopt a stealthy communication algorithm to hide data privacy and transaction privacy during energy trading. Then, we apply the optimized-version hash-locking method to construct the cross-chain payment channel for two-way anchored transactions, which enhances the payment efficiency and hides the trading connection between the trading participants. Moreover, we use non-interactive zero-knowledge (NIZK) to ensure privacy-preserving payment verification. The evaluation results demonstrate that our scheme can effectively protect privacy for cross-chain payment in energy trading systems.
Charithri Yapa, Chamitha de Alwis, Madhusanka Liyanage
Emergence of the Energy Internet (EI) demands restructuring of traditional electricity grids to integrate heterogeneous energy sources, distribution network management with grid intelligence and big data management. This paradigm shift is considered to be a breakthrough in the energy industry towards facilitating autonomous and decentralized grid operations while maximizing the utilization of Distributed Generation (DG). Blockchain has been identified as a disruptive technology enabler for the realization of EI to facilitate reliable, self-operated energy delivery. In this paper, we highlight six key directions towards utilizing blockchain capabilities to realize the envisaged EI. We elaborate the challenges in each direction and highlight the role of blockchain in addressing them. Furthermore, we summarize the future research directive in achieving fully autonomous and decentralized electricity distribution networks, which will be known as Energy Internet.
Chen Zhang, Tao Yang, Yong Wang
No abstract is available for this record.
Lasse Berntzen, Qian Meng, Boban Vesin, Marius Rohde Johannessen · 6 authors
This paper shows how the Ethereum blockchain can register settlements between an aggregator and prosumers in a smart grid. By providing flexible use of electricity to the aggregator, customers get rewarded. The flexibility is valuable for the aggregator since the power infrastructure may be used more efficiently. Blockchain is an exciting technology for handling settlements which, however, also has some clear limitations. For example, the cost per transaction on the public Ethereum blockchain is too high compared to the value of the actual transactions. A private blockchain is an alternative but removes some of the original benefits of using the public blockchain. The paper concludes that blockchain is a promising technology, and a private blockchain is more suitable for transactions containing minimal amounts.
Prince Waqas Khan, Yung-Cheol Byun
The world is moving rapidly from carbon-producing vehicles to green transportation systems. Electric vehicles (EV) are a big step towards a friendly mode of transport. With the constant rise in the number of electric vehicles, we need a widespread and seamless charging infrastructure that supports seamless charging and billing. Some users generate electricity using solar panels and charge their electric vehicles. In contrast, some use charging stations, and they pay for vehicle charging. This raises the question of trust and transparency. There are many countries where laws are not strictly enforced to prevent fraud in payment systems. One of the preeminent problems presently existing with any of the trading systems is the lack of transparency. The service provider can overcharge the customer. Blockchain is a modern-day solution that mitigates trust and privacy issues. We have proposed a peer-to-peer energy trading and charging payment system for electric vehicles based on blockchain technology. Users who have excess electricity which they can sell to the charging stations through smart contracts. Electric vehicle users can pay the charging bills through electronic wallets. We have developed the electric vehicle’s automatic-payment system using the open-source platform Hyperledger fabric. The proposed system will reduce human interaction and increase trust, transparency, and privacy among EV participants. We have analyzed the resource utilization and also performed average transaction latency and throughput evaluation. This system can be helpful for the policymakers of smart cities.
Bilal M. Eid, Md. Rabiul Islam, Rakibuzzaman Shah, Abdullah-Al Nahid · 6 authors
The grid connected photovoltaic (PV) power plants (PVPPs) are booming nowadays. The main problem facing the PV power plants deployment is the intermittency which leads to instability of the grid. In order to stabilize the grid, either energy storage device - mainly batteries - or a power curtailment technique can be used. The additional cost on utilizing batteries make it not preferred solution, because it leads to a drop in the return on investment (ROI) of the project. A good alternative, is using a customized load (such as; cryptocurrency-based loads) which consumes the surplus energy. This paper investigating the usage of a customized load - cryptocurrency mining rig - to create an added value for the owner of the plant and increase the ROI of the project. These devices are widely used to perform the required calculations for validating the transactions on the network of the Blockchain. A comparison between the ROI of the mining rig and the battery have been conducted in this study. Based on this study the mining rig has superior ROI of 7.7% - in the case with the lowest ROI - compared to 4.5% for battery. Moreover, an improved controlling strategy is developed to combine both the battery and mining rig in the same system. The developed strategy is able to keep the profitability as high as possible during the fluctuation of the mining network.
Konstantinos Koasidis, John Psarras
Under the Energy Efficiency Directive (2012/27/EU) energy companies have to achieve yearly energy savings up to 1.5% of annual sales to final consumers. Although buildings’ occupants and energy end-users seem to be gaining greater awareness of the value and need for sustainable energy practices, they do not behave in a more energy-conscious way. Existing solutions tend to be complicated, excluding buildings’ occupants from the process of understanding how the building works in terms of energy efficiency. This study presents a suite of user-centered applications, which will empower energy end-users to engage in achieving energy efficiency, using an open, secure, privacy-respectful, configurable, scalable cloud based big data infrastructure. This multi-disciplinary big data environment will integrate heterogeneous types of data, combined with emerging machine learning algorithms, distributed ledgers, blockchain technologies and a digital reward scheme through an alternative currency. These tools provide a “user – centric” framework for energy companies, local and regional authorities and third parties to empower energy end-users to take an active attitude in their energy usage. The proposed framework aims at transforming the social environment in a building to make people aware of the value of energy, and the importance of their collaboration, unlocking a potential for 12TWh energy saved in Europe.