The rapid growth of renewable energy has increased the requirements of the smart grid for communication and processing capabilities. As an effective solution to collect and manage information, the wireless network can improve the efficiency of renewable energy management. But due to the wireless data transmission risk and centralized power trading, the smart grid employing wireless networks cannot guarantee the security of the electricity market and the high consumption of renewable energy. Recently, as an emerging data-sharing technology, the blockchain has attracted widespread attention and is considered to have the potential to solve above problems. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-enabled secure power trading mechanism for the smart grid employing wireless networks. The blockchain is introduced to record power data collected by the wireless network, and the smart contract can make reasonable trading decisions based on this. The dual-chain structure composed of local energy trading blockchain and renewable energy trading blockchain improves the efficiency of power trading and renewable energy consumption. To strengthen the stability of renewable energy producers and expand their scale, we also design a blockchain-enabled renewable energy incentive mechanism. Finally, the modified Southern California Edison 56 bus test feeder model validated our mechanism.
Maria Luisa Di Silvestre, Pierluigi Gallo, Eleonora Riva Sanseverino, Giuseppe Sciumè · 5 authors
This article describes the possibility of using the blockchain technology for load and generation aggregation in a new distributed demand response (DR) service and customer remuneration system. The blockchain technology and the use of smart contracts for DR allow the creation of a distributed system, in which customers can communicate directly, in a transparent, secure, and traceable way, with the grid operator to provide their flexibility. In this article, the DR problem formulation takes into account several aspects, which are periodically executed. First, the blockchain records customers' energy consumption or production; then, the smart contract starts calculating the baseline and the potential support provided by each customer to fulfill the requested load adaptation. Customers' availability for generation and load profile modulation is also taken into account, as well as their privacy and an updated definition of the roles of grid and market operators in a new DR scenario supported by the blockchain technology. The blockchain used is Hyperledger Fabric, since it turned to be flexible for smart contract implementation while supporting multitenancy. Results show the possibility of successfully applying the blockchain technology to this particular topic, even considering privacy-preserving issues.
A Virtual Power Plant (VPP) is a network of distributed power generating units, flexible power consumers, and storage systems. A VPP balances the load on the grid by allocating the power generated by different linked units during periods of peak load. Demand-side energy equipment, such as Electric Vehicles (EVs) and mobile robots, can also balance the energy supply-demand when effectively deployed. However, fluctuation of the power generated by the various power units makes the supply power balance a challenging goal. Moreover, the communication security between a VPP aggregator and end facilities is critical and has not been carefully investigated. This paper proposes an AI-enabled, blockchain-based electric vehicle integration system, named AEBIS for power management in a smart grid platform. The system is based on an artificial neural-network and federated learning approaches for EV charge prediction, in which the EV fleet is employed as a consumer and as a supplier of electrical energy within a VPP platform. The evaluation results show that the proposed approach achieved high power consumption forecast with R2score of 0.938 in the conventional training scenario. When applying a federated learning approach, the accuracy decreased by only 1.7%. Therefore, with the accurate prediction of power consumption, the proposed system produces reliable and timely service to supply extra electricity from the vehicular network, decreasing the power fluctuation level. Also, the employment of AI-chip ensures a cost-efficient performance. Moreover, introducing blockchain technology in the system further achieves a secure and transparent service at the expense of an acceptable memory and latency cost.
With the decreasing reserves of fossil energy and the increasing capacity of renewable energy generation, the scale of microgrid based on distributed generations is expanding. However, more operation data and transaction information of microgrids will also bring several problems: the sufficient capacity of the server in the central management needed, the crises of trust among members, the transparency of transaction information and the confidentiality of data storage. In this paper, blockchain technology is used to deal with these problems as distributed data storage technology. A double-layer framework of energy transactions based on blockchain in multi-microgrids is proposed to provide decentralized trading, information transparency and mutual trust system of each node in the trading market. The central node within the microgrid collects the demand information of the trading market in lower layer and sends them to the trading market of multi-microgrids in higher layer to seek the energy transaction. The continuous double auction mechanism is used in the trading market to guarantee free and fair transactions among nodes. The proposed transaction framework effectively reduces the transaction volume with the main grid which improves energy utilization. Comprehensive simulation results are presented to prove the feasibility of the proposed transaction framework.
The increasing electric vehicle (EV) penetration in a distribution network triggers the need for EV charging coordination. This paper firstly proposes a hierarchical EV charging coordination model and an algorithm based on Lagrangian relaxation. A barrier to the implementation of the coordination algorithm is that there usually does not exist a reliable coordinator of charging stations. This paper shows that an unreliable coordinator may collude with some charging stations and behave dishonestly by disobeying the coordination algorithm. Thus, the collusion coalition can gain more profits while lowering the profits of others and the total social welfare. To provide reliable coordination of charging stations, a novel blockchain-based coordination platform via Ethereum is established, including a coordination structure and a smart contract. A mathematical analysis is given to show that the proposed platform can mitigate the collusion behaviors in the coordination. Simulation results show the consequence of collusion and how blockchain can prevent the collusion.
Scalability and security problems of the centralized architecture models in cyberphysical systems have great potential to be solved by novel blockchain based distributed models.A decentralized energy trading system takes advantage of various sources and effectively coordinates the energy to ensure optimal utilization of the available resources. It achieves that goal by managing physical, social and business infrastructures using technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and network systems. Addressing the importance of blockchain-enabled energy trading in the context of cyberphysical systems, this article provides a thorough overview of the P2P energy trading and the utilization of blockchain to enhance the efficiency and the overall performance including the degree of decentralization, scalability and the security of the systems. Three blockchain based energy trading models have been proposed to overcome the technical challenges and market barriers for better adoption of this disruptive technology.
The rise of blockchain technology has injected new vitality into the energy market. At present, blockchain projects for distributed photovoltaic power generation and carbon trading are rapidly emerging, but due to the barrier of two markets and the independent operation of such projects in two chains, the two market values cannot be two-way circulation, which is not conducive to the expansion of power trading business and the scale of carbon market. This paper proposed a joint operation mechanism of cross-chain trading, combined distributed photovoltaic power generation market and the carbon market by the blockchain technology. The novelty is to construct two chains which includes the mainchain and sidechain that enables the two markets to share data and circulate value, and to design a two-way anchoring method that achieves equating between carbon trading and electricity trading by cryptocurrency. The simulation studies took the improved IEEE 33 system as an example to simulate transactions on the Ethereum platform, and technically verify the feasibility of cross-chain transactions in these two markets, and use Ether as the settlement currency.
Adedayo O. Aderibole, Aamna Aljarwan, Muhammad Habib ur Rehman, Hatem Zeineldin · 8 authors
Blockchain technology is showing a significant potential to disrupt a number of information technology domains. One of the especially interesting areas for blockchain applications is smart grid. A number of early papers have been published in this area, however, there is no systematic analysis of the impact of blockchain technology on decentralization of smart grids. In this paper, we analyze the standard NIST conceptual model of smart grid domains with respect to the three critical blockchain features: decentralization, trust and incentive. We integrate our findings in order to produce a fully decentralized blockchain-enabled smart grid considering NIST conceptual model. The results of this paper should help smart grid developers and researchers to obtain a conceptual reference of the overall applicability of blockchain technology in smart grid domains and sub-domains. In addition this research will help to identify and guide smart grid blockchain development and research initiatives.
This paper presents a novel blockchain-based energy trading architecture for electric vehicles (EVs) within smart cities. By allowing local renewable energy providers to supply public charging stations, EV drivers can gain access to affordable energy and optimally plan for their charging operations. For this purpose, we present a smart-contract based trading platform that runs on top of a private Ethereum network. Contrary to existing solutions, we rely on the legacy billing and metering of the existing utility company in order to avoid making major changes to the existing infrastructure. The trading logic, including the auction mechanism, used to exchange energy can be defined in a smart-contract and applied within the platform. We conduct extensive experiments to evaluate the performance of some existing auction mechanisms and the underlying private Ethereum network in supporting the corresponding energy trading transaction load. We develop a virtualization-based simulator for Ethereum and measure both the transaction throughput and latency under different network and workload scenarios. The obtained results have shown that the current Ethereum implementation can support charging requests from EVs during peak hours in very crowded cities, such as Singapore.
The sheer growth of electricity demand and the rising number of electricity-hungry devices have highlighted and elevated the need of addressing the demand response management problem in residential smart grid systems. In this article, a novel contract-theoretic demand response management (DRM) framework in residential smart grid systems is introduced based on the principles of labor economics. The residential households produce and consume electricity, acting as dynamic prosumers. Initially, the prosumers' personal electricity generation and consumption characteristics are captured by introducing the concept of prosumers' types. Then, the prosumers' and the electricity market's profit is depicted in representative utility functions. Based on the labor economics principles, Contract Theory is adopted to design the interactions among the electricity market, which offers personalized rewards to the prosumers in order to buy electricity at an announced price, and the prosumers, who offer their “effort” by paying for the purchased electricity. The contract-theoretic DRM problem is formulated as a maximization problem of the electricity market's utility, while jointly guaranteeing the optimal satisfaction of the prosumers, under the scenarios of complete and incomplete information from the electricity market's perspective regarding knowing or not the prosumers' types, respectively. The corresponding optimization problems are solved following a convex optimization approach and the optimal contracts, i.e., rewards and efforts, are determined. Detailed numerical results obtained via modeling and simulation, highlight the key operation features and superiority of the proposed framework.
Giuseppe Sciumè, Emilio José García, Pierluigi Gallo, Eleonora Riva Sanseverino · 6 authors
The use of Distributed Ledger Technologies such as Blockchain for certifying Demand Response services allows for the creation of a distributed system in which customers can communicate with the system operator to provide their flexibility, in a secure, transparent and traceable way. Blockchain technology also supports incentive mechanisms for users taking part in the service through the generation of utility tokens to recognize the user's contribution. This paper presents the experimental test of a novel methodology for Demand Response programs implementation by using the Blockchain technology. The latter is employed for defining a distributed Demand Response service and a new system for its tracing and certification. For this work, a Smart Contract has been conceived and written to execute Demand Response events, calculate users' baseline, compute the support provided by each user towards the fulfilment of the requested load curve modification and remunerate each user with utility tokens proportionally to their contribution. To test the methodology, a Hyperledger Fabric network and a Smart Contract were deployed on four nodes of the Microgrid Laboratory of the Department of Energy Technology at Aalborg University (DK). Subsequently, a realistic scenario comprising two consumer nodes was developed using power electronic converters for generating the household profiles and Smart Meters for the measurement of the consumption profiles. Theoretical and experimental results show the feasibility of Distributed Ledger Technologies in smart grids management with a minimum investment in new hardware while enabling the active participation of customers in Demand Response more transparently and fairly.
Muhammad T. Afzal, Qi Huang, Waqas Amin, Khalid Umer · 6 authors
Existing work in energy demand side management focuses on the interaction between the utility grid and consumers. However, the previous technique is not focused on energy trading in local community of a renewable energy generation, distributed demand side management and not suitable for real-time environment. This paper presents a distributed demand side management system among multiple homes in community microgrid, with the integration of the internet of things smart meter and in the presence of renewable energy sources. The proposed energy consumption game is formulated for minimizing the cost of electricity in the individual home and the total cost of energy consumption in the whole community. The smart home users are playing game by optimizing their own daily energy consumption of appliances. The multiple participants include the self renewable generation of users, shared community microgrid and optional utility company. Each participant applies its best strategy to minimize energy consumption cost and users can maintain their own privacy of energy consumption. Moreover, the proposed scheme is distributed on blockchain, which provides a trusted communication medium between the participants. It enforces the autonomous monitoring of smart appliances and the billing of electricity consumption via smart contracts. Solidity smart contract is deployed to facilitate the execution of transactions without the involvement of third party in the smart community. Comparison of the results show that the proposed approach minimizes the total cost of energy consumption as well as each user's energy consumption cost.
Rabiya Khalid, Nadeem Javaid, Ahmad Almogren, Muhammad Umar Javed · 6 authors
Local energy generation and peer to peer (P2P) energy trading in the local market can reduce the energy consumption cost, emission of harmful gases (as renewable energy sources are used to generate energy at user's premises) and increase the smart grid resilience. However, local energy trading with peers can have trust and privacy issues. A centralized system can be used to manage this energy trading but it increases the overall cost of the system and also faces several issues. In this paper, to implement a hybrid P2P energy trading market, a blockchain-based system is proposed. It is fully decentralized and allows the market members to interact with each other and trade energy without involving a third party. Smart contracts play a very important role in the blockchain-based energy trading market. They contain all the necessary rules for energy trading. We have proposed three smart contracts to implement the hybrid electricity trading market. The market members interact with the main smart contract, which requests P2P and prosumer to grid smart contracts for further processing. The main objectives of this paper are to propose a model to implement an efficient hybrid energy trading market while reducing cost and peak to average ratio of electricity.
Tarek Medalel Masaud, Jonathan Warner, Ehab F. El‐Saadany
Interconnected microgrids are becoming a building block in smart systems. Initiating secure and efficient energy trading mechanisms among networked microgrids for reliability and economic mutual benefits have become a crucial task. Recently, integrating blockchain technologies into the energy sector have gained significant amount of interest, e.g. transactive grid. This paper proposes a two-layer secured smart contract-based energy trading mechanism to allow microgrids to establish coalitions, adjust the electricity-trading price, and achieve transparent and decentralized secure transactions without intervention of a third trusted party. Since reliability benefits are main drivers of microgrids operation in islanded mode, a new decentralized smart contract based-energy trading model for islanded networked microgrids is proposed in the first layer with an objective to achieve demand generation balance. In the second layer, and to achieve a higher security, all executed contracts are verified and saved in a blockchain based on a new developed two-phase consensus method that utilizes practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (pBFT), and a modified Proof of Stake (PoS). Simulations are conducted in Python environment to validate the proposed energy trading model.
The progress of ICT technologies, day-ahead forecast, home energy management systems, implementation of smart meters, and Distributed Energy Sources (DER) enables new business opportunities for prosumers to locally trade the surplus via blockchain platforms leading to considerable advantages at the community level. The current research handles settlement similar to a centralized market that it is not necessarily the best solution for blockchain. Nonetheless, the settlement is essential as sellers and buyers perceive the attractiveness of the local trading through the market results. In this paper, we propose two novel and efficient settlement mechanisms (Global Balancing Settlement GBS and Splitting Settlement SS) for Peer-to-Peer (P2P) electricity exchange enhancing the performance of the classic Pairwise Settlement PS. These will be written as stored procedures embedded into the smart contracts along with auctioning procedures. The simulations are performed using a small residential community with 30% of the electricity that can be locally traded to lower the bills and unstress the public grid. The performance of the two proposed settlement methods is proved by the 14 scenarios that thoroughly indicate that GBS and SS provide better results for both sellers and buyers than PS. In the reference scenario, with GBS, sellers have the highest encashments with almost 4% more, whereas buyers encounter the lowest payments with almost 5% less than in case of the classic settlement. Starting from reference scenario, alternative scenarios are envisioned to extend the analyses and assess the performance of the settlement mechanisms. The highest gain is recorded with GBS mechanism: almost 8.8% for sellers and 6.5% for buyers. Another interesting outcome is that GBS is providing better results than SS. When deviations are small, SS provides almost 6% gain for both sellers and buyers, but when they increase, the gain is exceedingly small or none.
In 2008, bitcoin disrupted the transactional ecosystem with its value propositions. However, sustaining autonomous, deregulated systems in markets filled with laws and regulations has had its challenges. There are also open questions of scalability, resilience, availability, speed and finality of transactions. Sound technical components have emerged but we need to take this one step further and integrate the units to provide an accepted packaged solution. Using a game application as an entry point, we propose a simple, inclusive asset transfer system which will stimulate adoption and create traction in the distributed ledger universe.
Konstantin Mironov, Sergey Trishin, Vadim Kartak, Amir Makhmutov · 5 authors
In this article we look through the task of ensuring availability and integrity of information processed within the Internet of things (IoT) networks. Such networks include sensors, actuators and other devices that are data sources, gateways and data stream hubs that transmit information from sensors to the Internet, and servers that store the received data, process them and provide access to users. We propose to apply distributed ledger technology (DLT) to ensure integrity and accessibility of data in IoT, which is why it is proposed. As an example, we consider DLT application for data protection in the energy industry. We consider a system for processing and storing data on the production and consumption of electricity in a decentralized electricity network. A review of existing projects related to the use of distributed ledger technologies in the energy sector is carried out. However, an important obstacle for using DLT in IoT is that IoT devices often do not have the required computing power. This paper indicates further ways of research that are associated with overcoming this obstacle in the application of distributed ledger technologies in the energy field.
This paper is a review of literature, resources and advances in peer to peer ledger technology adoption and not just the evolution of ledger technology in power sector. It also introduces the concept of transition architectures from the field of enterprise architecture to fill the gap in adoption. It reviews the possibility of de-centralising energy optimally and the possibility of using an architecture roadmap of milestones (transition states) via transition architectures to enhance adoption rates. The paper evaluates features of distributed ledgers. It identifies the core features that can be introduced independent of each other, thereby making a minimal usable product in each transition state via transition architectures with a view of target state that would encompass all core features. It covers engaging the current participants (generators, transmission, distributors, metering, retailers, prosumers, banks, regulators and others); and how a gradual evolving nature via transition architectures would increase adoption due to smooth transition as the roles of current participants evolve while the market dynamics re-orchestrates. A discussion and proposal for a custom distributed ledger framework for energy domain balancing decentralisation, immutability, verification and transparency in a gradual manner; to address privacy, compliance, regulations and peer to peer trading is presented.
Serkan Seven, Gang Yao, Ahmet Soran, Ahmet Önen · 5 authors
A novel Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading scheme for a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) is proposed by using Smart Contracts on Ethereum Blockchain Platform. The P2P energy trading is the recent trend the power society is keen to adopt carrying out several trial projects as it eases to generate and share the renewable energy sources in a distributed manner inside local community. Blockchain and smart contracts are the up-and-coming phenomena in the scene of the information technology used to be considered as the cutting-edge research topics in power systems. Earlier works on P2P energy trading including and excluding blockchain technology were focused mainly on the optimization algorithm, Information and Communication Technology, and Internet of Things. Therefore, the financial aspects of P2P trading in a VPP framework is focused and in that regard a P2P energy trading mechanism and bidding platform are developed. The proposed scheme is based on public blockchain network and auction is operated by smart contract addressing both cost and security concerns. The smart contract implementation and execution in a VPP framework including bidding, withdrawal, and control modules developments are the salient feature of this work. The proposed architecture is validated using realistic data with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) environment of Ropsten Test Network.
The success of the sustainable transformation of the energy sector, both in terms of planning and operation, relies on new entities, business models, and technologies. The shift from a relatively small number of centralized bulk producers and single direction energy flow to a decentralized multi-actor renewable system with a two-way flow of energy and multi-way flow of information needs to be accompanied by new technological solutions. Blockchain and other Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) represent a new technology for the energy sector, creating both opportunities and challenges for different aspects of energy systems, such as energy production, peer-to-peer (P2P) energy markets, green certificate registries, etc. Due to its decentralized nature and no need for intermediaries, DLT can facilitate energy democratization processes and decentralized energy production. In this paper, we present a systematic review of DLT principles, its theoretical background, and the most notable implementations, as well as an in-depth analysis of representative research projects and companies researching DLT use cases in the energy sector, taking into consideration technical aspects of DLT. We provide an insight into the benefits and limitations of DLT and identify technical challenges that need to be solved to enable widespread usage of DLT in energy systems. Additionally, we provide suggestions and guidelines for implementing DLT in different categories of use cases in the energy sector.
Muhammad Fahad Zia, Mohamed Benbouzid, Elhoussin Elbouchikhi, S. M. Muyeen · 6 authors
Prosumer concept and digitilization offer the exciting potential of microgrid transactive energy systems at distribution level for reducing transmission losses, decreasing electric infrastructure expenditure, improving reliability, enhancing local energy use, and minimizing customers' electricity bills. Distributed energy resources, demand response, distributed ledger technologies, and local energy markets are integral parts of transaction energy system for emergence of decentralized smart grid system. Hence, this paper discusses transactive energy concept and proposes seven functional layers architecture for designing transactive energy system. The proposed architecture is compared with practical case study of Brooklyn microgrid. Moreover, this paper reviews the existing architectures and explains the widely known distributed ledger technologies (blockchain, directed acyclic graph, hashgraph, holochain, and tempo) alongwith their advantages and challenges. The local energy market concept is presented and critically analyzed for energy trade within a transactive energy system. This paper also reviews the potential and challenges of peer-to-peer and community-based energy markets. Proposed architecture and analytical review of distributed ledger technologies and local energy markets pave the way for advanced research and industrialization of transactive energy systems.
A. Sheikh, V. Kamuni, Ahtisham Urooj, Sushama Wagh · 6 authors
To mitigate the problems of demand-supply mismatch in the future grid the solution of renewable energy source (RES) integration results in a bidirectional flow of information and transactions, which are prone to different kinds of cyber attacks, especially in energy trading where the security of financial transactions is of most concern. Electric vehicle (EV) having the advantage of mobility can play a significant role in maintaining demand-supply balance at any location unlike their peers (conventional compensator). For deciding entire system security, securing EVs charging-discharging transactions at all charging stations or connecting points is most important. The system can be made more secure against cyber-attacks with the introduction of the blockchain framework. Hence, in view of secured transactions, the paper focuses on the energy trading process between EVs and distribution network (DN) in a Byzantine based blockchain consensus framework. During peak load period DN initiates the energy trading process by demanding additional power from the EVs. This process of energy trading results in energy and information exchange which needs to be secured through blockchain from vulnerable attacks and threats. Possible scenarios of various cyber-attacks on different nodes of the system are visualized in the form of false data. To highlight the application of blockchain, the Byzantine general problem framework is used which states that for successful attack 33% of information is to be manipulated, in other words, decreasing the probability of attack confirms the system security. Numerical results based on various operating scenarios for the standard IEEE 33 bus system are in agreement with the Byzantine consensus problem indicating improvement in system security.
Smart grid (SG) is an emerging technology which provides many services to the end users and utilities, such as load management, frequency regulation, and grid stability. Although many solutions exist to provide these services in a secure manner, but these solutions are not adequate keeping in view of the heavy cryptographic primitives execution on these devices. Hence, in this article, GUARDIAN, a blockchain-based secure demand response management scheme is presented so as to take energy trading decisions securely for managing the overall load of residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. In GUARDIAN, the miner nodes, which are block verifiers, are selected using their power consumption and processing power. These nodes are responsible for authenticating the energy transactions in SG. The energy transaction is initialized by an end user which creates the block of transaction to trade the energy. The miner nodes then validate these blocks and adds these in the blockchain. The successful energy trade occurs only for the blocks which are in the blockchain. The proposed scheme is lightweight in terms of communication and computation costs. Moreover, the results obtained demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed scheme for secure demand response management in the SG.