Blockchain Papers

Weicheng Xu, Jiahui Li, Moslem Dehghani, Mina GhasemiGarpachi

No abstract is available for this record.

Guang Chen, Mingda He, Jianbin Gao, Chang Liu · 6 authors

Blockchain commoditizes confidence in a step to grid flexibility and allows decentralized smart contracts to enforce auditable multiparty payments based on established standards among distributed power suppliers and customers. Smart contracts reduce the need to communicate with foreign entities, making it feasible for distributed energy trades and exchanges, including energy flows and financial activity, to be implemented and monetized. It might help decrease the cost of transactive energy and increase protection. This work provides how a renewable energy business is secure and how privacy and anonymity are given for such a system through blockchain implementation.

Takeshi Miyamae, Fumihiko Kozakura, Makoto Nakamura, Shenbin Zhang · 7 authors

The total number of photovoltaic power producing facilities whose FIT-based ten-year contract expires by 2023 is expected to reach approximately 1.65 million in Japan. If the number of renewable electricity-producing/consuming facilities reached two million, an enormous number of transactions would be invoked beyond blockchain's scalability.We propose mutually cooperative two novel methods to simultaneously solve scalability, data size, and privacy problems in blockchain-based trading platforms for renewable energy environmental value. One is a management scheme of electricity production resources (EPRs) using an extended UTXO token. The other is a data aggregation scheme that aggregates a significant number of smart meter records with evidentiality using zero-knowledge proof (ZKP).

Ziaur Rahman, Ibrahim Khalil, Xun Yi, Mohammed Atiquzzaman

There has been intense concern for security alternatives because of the recent rise of cyber attacks, mainly targeting critical systems such as industry, medical, and energy ecosystems. Although the latest industry infrastructures largely depend on AI-driven maintenance, prediction based on corrupted data undoubtedly results in loss of life and capital. Admittedly, an inadequate data protection mechanism can readily challenge the security and reliability of the network. The shortcomings of the conventional cloud or trust-ed-certificate-driven techniques have motivated us to exhibit a unique blockchain-based framework for a secure and efficient Industry 4.0 system. The demonstrated framework obviates the long-established certificate authority after enhancing the consortium blockchain that reduces the data processing delay and increases cost-effective throughput. Nonetheless, the distributed Industry 4.0 security model entails cooperative trust rather than depending on a single party, which in essence indulges the costs and threat of the single point of failure. Therefore, the multi-signature technique of the proposed framework accomplishes multi-party authentication, which confirms its applicability for a real-time and collaborative cyber-physical system.

Tatiana Chernova, Elena Gryazina

No abstract is available for this record.

Qing Yang, Hao Wang, Taotao Wang, Taotao Wang · 8 authors

The advent of distributed energy resources (DERs), such as distributed renewables, energy storage, electric vehicles, and controllable loads, \rv{brings} a significantly disruptive and transformational impact on the centralized power system. It is widely accepted that a paradigm shift to a decentralized power system with bidirectional power flow is necessary to the integration of DERs. The virtual power plant (VPP) emerges as a promising paradigm for managing DERs to participate in the power system. In this paper, we develop a blockchain-based VPP energy management platform to facilitate a rich set of transactive energy activities among residential users with renewables, energy storage, and flexible loads in a VPP. Specifically, users can interact with each other to trade energy for mutual benefits and provide network services, such as feed-in energy, reserve, and demand response, through the VPP. To respect the users' independence and preserve their privacy, we design a decentralized optimization algorithm to optimize the users' energy scheduling, energy trading, and network services. Then we develop a prototype blockchain network for VPP energy management and implement the proposed algorithm on the blockchain network. By experiments using real-world data-trace, we validated the feasibility and effectiveness of our algorithm and the blockchain system. The simulation results demonstrate that our blockchain-based VPP energy management platform reduces the users' cost by up to 38.6% and reduces the overall system cost by 11.2%.

Pei Liu, Kai Ma, Jie Yang, Bo Yang · 6 authors

This article considers both the influence of relay power and load control period on the load tracking performance in smart grid communication. First, based on regulation errors caused by load control with imperfect channel state information (CSI), the load tracking cost model integrated of load control period and relay power is established in smart grid communication. Then, a coordination mechanism of cost-sharing contract (CSC) is presented. In the CSC, the utility companies select the preferred contractual terms offered by the telecom operator (TO) to reduce their costs and coordinate the whole network system simultaneously. Finally, the theoretical analysis and simulation demonstrate that the simultaneous consideration of the relay power and load control period can reduce the costs of the utility companies, increase the profit of the TO, and improve the social welfare. Besides, the proposed coordination mechanism of CSC can coordinate the whole network system.

Dario Assante, Clemente Capasso, Ottorino Veneri, Manuel Castro · 6 authors

Technologies 4.0 have had disruptive innovation in various sectors, including the energy one. Smart electricity grids, leveraging smart metering and data analysis systems, can provide a level of monitoring, control and optimization unimaginable until a decade ago. Network management mechanisms based on demand-response models may soon be a reality, thanks to smart contracts, blockchain, artificial intelligence and machine-to-machine technologies. These changes are leading to a radical change in the skills required by the labor market to operate in the energy sector, as well as the birth of new professional figures with both electricity and IT skills. This paper aims to illustrate the new opportunities and challenges that the Internet of Energy will bring. It also wants to present the results of the IoE-EQ project, which designed new professional qualifications, VET courses and open educational resources to support the training of staff involved in the digital transition of the energy sector.

Soham Ghosh, Raj Sekhar Dutta

Blockchain technology has recently witnessed a rapid proliferation across multiple industries and has the potential to evolve as a popular energy transaction platform for grid operators and general users. The current proof-of-work consensus algorithm used by many blockchain protocols suffer from vulnerabilities such as the majority attacks problem and strip mining. The algorithm often requires specialized application-specific hardware and involves energy-intensive computation, making it an unlikely candidate for power grid applications. On the other hand, the proof-of-stake consensus algorithm is susceptible to the well-known nothing-at-stake vulnerability issue, making it equally unlikely to be used in large-scale secured energy transactions. An energy-efficient locational marginal pricing-based hybrid proof-of-work, proof-of-stake consensus algorithm is proposed to mitigate such risks. The hybrid consensus algorithm uses an optimized market-based energy pricing model to select the mining and forging nodes. A detailed framework of the hybrid consensus algorithm is provided, along with an overview of its potential application to record large volumes of energy transactions and execute obligatory smart-contract agreements.

Kuljeet Kaur, Georges Kaddoum, Sherali Zeadally

The ever-growing trend of making the traditional power grids smarter than before has resulted in their gradual evolution to more sophisticated grids, referred to as Smart Grids (SGs) Cyber-Physical Systems with complex networking technologies. The integration of Information and Communication Technologies with power grids fosters seamless data sharing between different SG entities, which supports effective and smart governance in terms of demand response management, frequency support, and voltage stabilization. Nonetheless, this integration opens up several security and privacy concerns, namely, electricity theft, power loss, battery exhaustion, infrastructure mapping, etc. These issues become even more important with the addition of distributed energy sources, e.g. electric vehicles (EVs), battery energy storage systems, and renewable energy sources, into the SGs. We present a framework based on Software Defined Networking (SDN) and BlockChain (BC) to address two challenging issues of EV-aided SG ecosystems, namely, privacy assurance and power security. We leverage the capabilities of SDN to handle the complex interactions between different subsystems of the SG. Furthermore, we also employ BC and smart contracts' properties to secure energy transactions and data communications. We design a secure and efficient mutual authentication protocol based on Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) and BC for privacy preservation during smart energy trading. We also proposed a BC-based smart contract for effective Demand Response Management (DRM) during bidirectional energy transfer between EVs and SG. Finally, we present experimental evaluations to validate the proposed framework's performance. The results obtained demonstrate the improved performance of the proposed scheme compared with current state-of-the-art approaches. The mutual authentication protocol designed is not only secure against major attack vectors (namely, session key security, message integrity, anonymity, forward secrecy, and so on), but it is also cost-efficient in terms of communication and computational costs. Additionally, the SC designed assures power security and maintains an adequate balance between demand and supply.

Yi Yu, Shuai Liu, Hui Xiao, Wenshan Hu

The security of data propagation is a critical challengefor the widespread use of networked control systems (NCSs), while the conventional strategies based on estimation techniques cannot solve this issue well. Furthermore, the contradiction between the security and the real-time nature of the control method has not been settled yet. The aim of this article is to propose a novel real-time control method empowered by blockchain technologies to resolve the security problems of NCSs under potential cyberattacks. To facilitate the analysis of blockchain-assisted NCSs, a cyber-authentic-physical system (CAPS) framework is proposed. One of the significant features of the CAPS is that the defense of NCSs against attacks is built by introducing a blockchain protocol. Theoretical analysis reveals the relationship among the scale of the peer-to-peer network, the security of the CAPS, and the latency of NCSs, as well as clarifies the impact of the introduction of the blockchain mechanism on the performance of NCSs. With the networked secure control mechanism designed in this article, the security and stability of NCSs can be achieved simultaneously, and their sufficient conditions are also given. Finally, simulations and practical experiments are presented to show the efficacy of the suggested secure control strategy.

Ajit Muzumdar, Chirag Modi, G. M. Madhu, C. Vyjayanthi

No abstract is available for this record.

Mohamed Abaas, Pritpal Singh, Ross Lee

Blockchain has been implemented in several application in smart grid systems, such as data management and cybersecurity in utility grid systems. In addition, blockchain has been deployed in peer-to-peer electricity trading in microgrid systems. Due to the promising Blockchain features, it is considered as a good fit for energy trading. However, Blockchain applications in power grids are in their infancy so there are many research opportunities in this field. This paper reviews the existing applications of Blockchain in power grids and suggests some new opportunities for applying this technology, especially in enhancing the resiliency of power grids.

Sajjad Asefi, Yash Madhwal, Yury Yanovich, Elena Gryazina

The application of renewable energy sources in the power grid increases the necessity of tracking the system's state, especially in smart grids, where there is a bidirectional transfer of data and power. The complexity of coupling between communication and the electrical infrastructure in a smart grid will create a higher chance for security breach. Increasing the state estimation accuracy will help the smart grid operator efficiently manage the system. The paper proposes an integration of distributed state estimation with a blockchain designed communication platform. Additionally, the asynchronous manner for data transmission, which is more likely to happen in the real world, has been considered as the second task of this research. Finally, a detailed analysis of the blockchain-based application in distributed state estimation is provided. The numerical analysis shows that the proposed method meets real-world performance requirements and brings high security and reliability to the distributed state estimation process.

G. Vasukidevi, T. Sethukarasi

No abstract is available for this record.

Xingzhi Li, Bei Han, Guojie Li, Lingen Luo · 6 authors

With growing complexity and uncertainty from distributed generations and active customers, distribution networks are facing more unexpected events and topology changes; while very limited measurements may degrade the observability of distribution system states and endanger the security of the system. Meanwhile, massive data from various types of users (if they can be used), can be valuable for power utilities. This makes privacy and data security a more critical issue, while being endowed with operation and market flexibilities. Thus, we propose a blockchain-based privacy-protecting approach for Dynamic Topology Awareness (DTA) to distinguish topology changes from cyber anomalies, including physical, cyber and business layers. At the bottom layer (physical layer), the distribution network is partitioned into subareas and tie-line areas, coping with local data from measurement devices or users. Estimated border values from parallel local estimations would be examined through data consistency checking. And DTA consensus algorithm might be triggered, querying historical status stored as blockchain contracts for anomalies detections and new block formations. Voting mechanism is then adopted to verify new blocks from data tampering. The performance of the proposed DTA approach is validated through simulations to identify topology changes and cyber anomalies, with additional discussions on the trade-off between DTA sensitivity and estimation accuracy.

Shivam Saxena, Hany E. Z. Farag

No abstract is available for this record.

Alexandre Lucas, Dimitris Geneiatakis, Yannis Soupionis, Igor Nai-Fovino · 5 authors

Demand response (DR) services have the potential to enable large penetration of renewable energy by adjusting load consumption, thus providing balancing support to the grid. The success of such load flexibility provided by industry, communities, or prosumers and its integration in electricity markets, will depend on a redesign and adaptation of the current interactions between participants. New challenges are, however, bound to appear with the large scale contribution of smaller assets to flexibility, including, among others, the dispatch coordination, the validation of delivery of the DR provision, and the corresponding settlement of contracts, while assuring secured data access among interested parties. In this study we applied distributed ledger (DLT)/blockchain technology to securely track DR provision, focusing on the validation aspect, assuring data integrity, origin, fast registry, and sharing within a permissioned system, between all relevant parties (including transmission system operators (TSOs), aggregators, distribution system operators (DSOs), balance responsible parties (BRP), and prosumers). We propose a framework for DR registry and implemented it as a proof of concept on Hyperledger Fabric, using real assets in a laboratory environment, in order to study its feasibility and performance. The lab set up includes a 450 kW energy storage system, scheduled to provide DR services, upon a system operator request and the corresponding validations and verifications are done, followed by the publication on a blockchain. Results show the end to end execution time remained below 1 s, when below 32 requests/sec. The smart contract memory utilization did not surpass 1% for both active and passive nodes and the peer CPU utilization, remained below 5% in all cases simulated (3, 10, and 28 nodes). Smart Contract CPU utilization remained stable, below 1% in all cases. The performance of the implementation showed scalable results, which enables real world adoption of DLT in supporting the development of flexibility markets, with the advantages of blockchain technology.

Aamir Shahzad, Kaiwen Zhang, Abdelouahed Gherbi

Smart grid (SG) technology comes with various advantages, among others, of efficient power distribution, reduction in cost consumption, maintain energy loss, and peak quality level in its supply chain. SG aims to provide all required and advanced features to overcome the issues of the existing power grid and to fulfill the rapidly growing demands of power generation, transmission, distribution, and monitoring energy consumption. However, SG has been facing various challenges to ensure the nature of every transaction, transaction verification, and recording in the power supply chain, especially in the context of a large scale IoT(Internet of things) network. Another issue is maintaining the privacy of every transaction, as well as the privacy of participating entities in the power supply chain. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based proof-of-concept solution to manage every transaction that occurs in an IoT-aided smart grid system. Our solution, IoT-aided smart grid system with blockchain, provides an immutable transaction record, which is always shared and transparent to each participant of the system. Transactions are carried through IoT objects connected in a smart grid, and are recorded, verified, and validated on a blockchain immutable ledger. Furthermore, to verify and maintain the privacy of participants, cryptographic pseudonyms are used by each participant to interact with the SG supply chain, without revealing personal identities and important private information of the participants to malicious entities in the system.

Turabek Gaybullaev, Hee-Yong Kwon, Taesic Kim, Mun‐Kyu Lee

The rapidly increasing expansion of distributed energy resources (DER), such as renewable energy systems and energy storage systems into the electric power system and the integration of advanced information and communication technologies enable DER owners to participate in the electricity market for grid services. For more efficient and reliable power system operation, the concept of peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading has recently been proposed. The adoption of blockchain technology in P2P energy trading has been considered to be the most promising solution enabling secure smart contracts between prosumers and users. However, privacy concerns arise because the sensitive data and transaction records of the participants, i.e., the prosumers and the distribution system operator (DSO), become available to the blockchain nodes. Many efforts have been made to resolve this issue. A recent breakthrough in a P2P energy trading system on an Ethereum blockchain is that all bid values are encrypted using functional encryption and peer matching for trading is performed securely on these encrypted bids. Their protocol is based on a method that encodes integers to vectors and an algorithm that securely compares the ciphertexts of these vectors. However, the comparison method is not very efficient in terms of the range of possible bid values because the amount of computation grows linearly according to the size of this range. This paper addresses this challenge by proposing a new bid encoding algorithm called dual binary encoding, which dramatically reduces the amount of computation as it is only proportional to the square of the logarithm of the size of the encoding range. Moreover, we propose a practical mechanism for rebidding the remaining amount caused when the amounts from the two matching peers are not equal. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed method is evaluated by using a virtual energy trade testbed and a private Ethereum blockchain platform.

Qing Yang, Hao Wang

The fast growth of distributed energy resources (DERs), such as distributed renewables (e.g., rooftop PV panels), energy storage systems, electric vehicles, and controllable appliances, drives the power system toward a decentralized system with bidirectional power flow. The coordination of DERs through an aggregator, such as a utility, system operator, or a third-party coordinator, emerges as a promising paradigm. However, it is not well understood how to enable trust between the aggregator and DERs to integrate DERs efficiently. In this paper, we develop a trustable and distributed coordination system for DERs using blockchain technology. We model various DERs and formulate a cost minimization problem for DERs to optimize their energy trading, scheduling, and demand response. We use the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) to solve the problem in a distributed fashion. To implement the distributed algorithm in a trustable way, we design a smart contract to update multipliers and communicate with DERs in a blockchain network. We validate our design by experiments using real-world data, and the simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm.

Sounak Bhowmik, Milandeep Sarkar, Dipanjan Bose, Chandan Kumar Chanda

This paper tries to build a system, providing maximum participation and maximum resiliency for the existing power system using existing technologies only but in an innovative approach. The proposed ecosystem consists of distributed power generation nodes, consumers, smart grids, and microgrids to make peer-to-peer energy transactions easy, both physically and economically. The proposal can be divided into two parts, viz. physical and digital. A user cannot send power to another customer in need with few exceptions in a traditional system. This work has shown how each user can be connected to the smart grid via one or many micro-grids. Moreover, their trade will be automated on the digital side by Ethereum, a public blockchain that supports smart contracts. To make things more efficient and easy, we introduced a token-based economy, empowered by a smart contract. In this way, the resiliency of the whole ecosystem will be improved dramatically.

Oumair Naseer, Saif Ullah, Luqman Anjum

No abstract is available for this record.

Abhinav Sadu, Akshay Jindal, Gianluca Lipari, Ferdinanda Ponci · 5 authors

The current Distribution Grid Automation (DGA) Systems are being heavily dependent on the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) infrastructure for its proper operation. The DGA architectures are predominantly centralized and usually deployed on a dedicated hardware. This increases the risk of blackouts under a coordinated cyber-physical attack. The compromise of the dedicated hardware that hosts the central coordinator of the DGA automation results in a blackout. Though many countermeasures have already been proposed for tackling different types cyber and physical attacks on the ICT infrastructure, very few measures have been proposed to ensure the availability of the grid operation functions, even when it is compromised. This study proposes an automatic, distributed approach based on Blockchain and Smart Contract that ensures the availability of the core DGA functions even if the central coordinator that operates the grid is compromised. This is done by virtualizing and migrating/re-initialising these functions from the dedicated hardware that was compromised to another. Additionally, a Multi-Attribute Decision Making based method is incorporated into the Smart Contract that helps in selection of the optimal hardware that can host the function considering its limitations (hardware and software). Finally, a proof of concept implementation of the proposed solution is presented that utilizes the Calvin IoT (Internet of Things) platform, Flow programming tool and Hyperledger fabric and its performance is evaluated.