Blockchain Papers

Tooraj Jamasb, Tripta Thakur, Baidyanath Bag

No abstract is available for this record.

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Within the smart grid technology landscape, a broad range of hardware, software, application and communications technologies are at various levels of maturity and deployment. The coordinated implementation of smart grid technologies such as distributed energy storage, communications, control, power electronics, and power system technologies allows the seamless integration of intermittent DG and adds further capabilities to it including controllability and firmness. This chapter examines the potential impact of PEVs on the existing grid, describe methods of using smart grid technologies alleviate foreseen problems, and investigate potential opportunities enhance the performance of the electric grid using PEVs. In the longer term, the aggregation of PEVs will allow them to be integrated more readily into the existing ancillary service command and contracting framework, since the grid system operator needs only directly communicate with the aggregators. The simplest and most effective means for controlling the energy consumption of PEVs is direct utility control of charging times.

Junyeon Hwang, Myeong-in Choi, Tacklim Lee, Seonki Jeon · 7 authors

Recently, various business models collect and store data generated from events using the Internet and various sensors and use them effectively. It is changing smartly into a convenient and safe new business model. In this paper, we present directions through experiments to understand and develop evolving types of business models by collecting data using various sensors in a test bed environment. We implement and experiment with technologies using Bigdata in addition to IoT(Internet of Things) technology. Renewable energy projects are attracting attention due to environmental issues such as global warming. In this paper, we introduce energy prosumer service model applying blockchain technology. This allows various energy sources to be connected to various users and producers. Also, we try to improve energy efficiency by analyzing energy pattern of users. We propose a transaction model that can collect, utilize, and process data more efficiently by combining the above technologies.

Paulin Jacquot, Olivier Beaude, Stéphane Gaubert, Nadia Oudjane

We compare two Demand Side Management (DSM) mechanisms, introduced\nrespectively by Mohsenian-Rad et al (2010) and Baharlouei et al (2012), in\nterms of efficiency and fairness. Each mechanism defines a game where the\nconsumers optimize their flexible consumption to reduce their electricity\nbills. Mohsenian-Rad et al propose a daily mechanism for which they prove the\nsocial optimality. Baharlouei et al propose a hourly billing mechanism for\nwhich we give theoretical results: we prove the uniqueness of an equilibrium in\nthe associated game and give an upper bound on its price of anarchy. We\nevaluate numerically the two mechanisms, using real consumption data from Pecan\nStreet Inc. The simulations show that the equilibrium reached with the hourly\nmechanism is socially optimal up to 0.1%, and that it achieves an important\nfairness property according to a quantitative indicator we define. We observe\nthat the two DSM mechanisms avoid the synchronization effect induced by non-\ngame theoretic mechanisms, e.g. Peak/OffPeak hours contracts.\n

José Horta, Daniel Kofman, David Menga, Alonso Silva

Future electricity distribution grids will host a considerable share of variable renewable energy sources and local storage resources. Moreover, they will face new load structures due for example to the growth of the electric vehicle market. These trends raise the need for new paradigms for distribution grids operation, in which Distribution System Operators will increasingly rely on demand side flexibility and households will progressively become prosumers playing an active role on smart grid energy management. However, in present energy management architectures, the lack of coordination among actors limits the capability of the grid to enable the mentioned trends. In this paper we tackle this problem by proposing an architecture that enables households to autonomously exchange energy blocks and flexibility services with neighbors, operators and market actors. The solution is based on a blockchain transactive platform. We focus on a market application, where households can trade energy with their neighbors, aimed to locally balancing renewable energy production. We propose a market mechanism and dynamic transport prices that provide an incentive for households to locally manage energy resources in a way that responds to both pro-sumer and operator needs. We evaluate the impact of such markets through comprehensive simulations using power flow analysis and realistic load profiles, providing valuable insight for the design of appropriate mechanisms and incentives.

Jian Wang, Qianggang Wang, Niancheng Zhou, Yuan Chi

The installed capacity of distributed generation (DG) based on renewable energy sources has increased continuously in power systems, and its market-oriented transaction is imperative. However, traditional transaction management based on centralized organizations has many disadvantages, such as high operation cost, low transparency, and potential risk of transaction data modification. Therefore, a decentralized electricity transaction mode for microgrids is proposed in this study based on blockchain and continuous double auction (CDA) mechanism. A buyer and seller initially complete the transaction matching in the CDA market. In view of the frequent price fluctuation in the CDA market, an adaptive aggressiveness strategy is used to adjust the quotation timely according to market changes. DG and consumer exchange digital certificate of power and expenditure on the blockchain system and the interests of consumers are then guaranteed by multi-signature when DG cannot generate power due to failure or other reasons. The digital certification of electricity assets is replaced by the sequence number with specific tags in the transaction script, and the size of digital certification can be adjusted according to transaction energy quantity. Finally, the feasibility of market mechanism through specific microgrid case and settlement process is also provided.

Tianyu Yang, Qinglai Guo, Xue‐Cheng Tai, Hongbin Sun · 7 authors

This paper presents the potential application of the blockchain technology in future Energy Internet operation, which would be more decentralized and self-executing. A blockchain system could solve several problems in the newly emerged scenarios with the support of the consensus mechanism, encryption methods and validation mechanism. Applying blockchains in decetralized operational framework of energy internet will bring the system with a more secure, flexible and low-cost operational solution.

Moein Sabounchi, Jin Wei

Integrative various distributed generation in energy infrastructure have brought great opportunities in recent years. However, this integration has also led to critical challenges in energy management, such as congestion pricing and non-optimality of dispatch. To address these challenges, deregulation and decentralization of electricity market is one of the effective solutions. Although various deregulation schemes have been proposed in recent years, there still remain some serious challenges in achieving resilient management of real-time energy deregulation especially in the presence of disasters. To counter this issue, in this paper, we propose a model for a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) transactive microgrid where prosumers (Producer/ Consumer) can trade local generation with each other via a smart management system. Furthermore, in our proposed model, the energy trading is executed in a decentralized manner by leveraging Blockchain technologies. Among different Blockchain technologies, we adopt the Ethereum Blockchain in our work. The auction models for energy trading are proposed by incorporating a smart contract that is the essential component of the Blockchain. In our simulations, the proposed P2P energy trading model is evaluated.

Liuchen Chang, Xi Wang, Meiqin Mao

Distributed energy resources (DERs) include distributed generations (DGs), distributed energy storages (DESs), and the demand response resources (DRRs). With the increasing penetration of DERs in distribution network, more and more users change from power consumers to prosumers which have great influences on distribution network as well as generate new business models on the demand side. Based on the emerging change of the power system, this paper proposes a transactive energy scheme (TES) based on multi-factor evaluation and contract net protocol to determine energy trading strategies among prosumers to realize economic and stable operation of distribution network. In the proposed TES, a TE market is built in the deregulatory retail power market. Power consumers, smart homes, industrial parks, or virtual power plants with DERs take the initiative as transactive nodes (TNs), and the peer to peer transactions among TNs in TE market can be carried out based on the multi-factor evaluation and contract protocol. When a TN cannot meet its own electricity demand, it launches the contract net to other TNs, requests to carry on the electric energy transaction, and determines the selected TNs according to the multi-factor evaluation. The simulation results show compared with the traditional electricity business model, the market participants who use the proposed TES can gain more economic benefits as well as protecting their own privacy.

Andrija Goranović, Marcus Meisel, Lampros Fotiadis, Stefan Wilker · 6 authors

Since the release of Bitcoins as crypto currency, Bitcoin has played a prominent part in the media. However, not Bitcoin but the underlying technology blockchain offers the possibility to innovatively change industries. The decentralized structure of the blockchain is particularly suitable for implementing control and business processes in microgrids, using smart contracts and decentralized applications. This paper provides a state of the art survey overview of current blockchain technology based projects with the potential to revolutionize microgrids and provides a first attempt to technically characterize different start-up approaches. The most promising use case from the microgrid perspective is peer-to-peer trading, where energy is exchanged and traded locally between consumers and prosumers. An application concept for distributed PV generation is provided in this promising area.

Lee Thomas, Chao Long, Pete Burnap, Jianzhong Wu · 5 authors

An electricity supply smart contract was developed and demonstrated to perform pre-time-of-use price negotiation between demand and generation and post-time-of-use settlement and payment. The smart contract was demonstrated with 1000 loads/generators with usages simulated using lognormal probability distributions. It combines payment of deposit, negotiation of price based on estimates, settlement based on actual usage and enactment of payments using crypto-currency. The settlement procedure rewards customers that adjusted to balance the system. The smart contract was written in the solidity programming language and implemented with a simulated Ethereum blockchain using testrpc and go-ethereum. In the example test case, a price was agreed, settled and payment enacted.

Morgen E. Peck, David Wagman

Would you pay slightly more for your electricity if you knew it was sourced from photovoltaic panels on your neighbor's roof? Or, if you are that neighbor, would you use your solar power to charge a battery and dump that energy back onto the grid at peak hours, when the price was highest? The answers to these questions-which depend on how people would behave in an open energy market-are unknown, because that market does not exist. Net metering and feed-in tariff programs, the two dominant schemes for reimbursing residential energy production, pay out at a fixed rate, effectively decoupling producers from the price signals that might otherwise direct their behavior. But that may be changing. And we may have the blockchain to thank. Multiple projects are now under way to use technology that was originally intended to account for transactions in digital currency to track electricity production and put it up for sale.

Fabian Knirsch, Andreas Unterweger, Günther Eibl, Dominik Engel

No abstract is available for this record.

Michael Mylrea, Sri Nikhil Gupta Gourisetti

Blockchain may help solve several complex problems related to integrity and trustworthiness of rapid, distributed, complex energy transactions and data exchanges. In a move towards resilience, blockchain commoditizes trust and enables automated smart contracts to support auditable multiparty transactions based on predefined rules between distributed energy providers and customers. Blockchain based smart contracts also help remove the need to interact with third-parties, facilitating the adoption and monetization of distributed energy transactions and exchanges, both energy flows as well as financial transactions. This may help reduce transactive energy costs and increase the security and sustainability of distributed energy resource (DER) integration, helping to remove barriers to a more decentralized and resilient power grid. This paper explores the application of blockchain and smart contracts to improve smart grid cyber resiliency and secure transactive energy applications.

Lei Xue, Yunlong Teng, Zhenyuan Zhang, Jianping Li · 6 authors

The problem is discussed that large grid fluctuation caused by distributed generation integration, pointing out that the microgrid power local consumption is a solution to this problem. However, power transaction volume of electricity in microgrid is not large, while management has not simplified, and labor cost is high. The introduction of power market can solve local consumption problem of microgrid. Using blockchain technology can simplify the management of microgrid power transactions and realize peer-to-peer power transaction. Microgrid dispatch centers can also be simplified. The purpose of this paper is to explore applications of blockchain technology related to electricity market on microgrid and to present a framework how blockchain is employed to facilitate peer-to-peer electricity sales in microgrid.

Nam Ho Kim, Sun Moo Kang, Choong Seon Hong

Green transportation such as electric vehicles are emerging as an alternative to the traditional vehicles primarily due to the increasing cost and need of petroleum energy worldwide. These electric vehicle operate by using electric charging and the way to charge an electric car is to use a mobile charger or use a charging infrastructure. Therefore, when a mobile charger is used, a billing system is required through which a user is billed who has charged the electric vehicle. In this paper, we propose a mobile charger billing system that utilizes Blockchain technology. This technology has been applied to achieve more secure online transactions in a peer-to-peer manner. Moreover, we analyze the requirements of mobile charger for billing and propose a lightweight scheme that can overcome the challenge of data size in existing Blockchain.

Michael Mylrea, Sri Nikhil Gupta Gourisetti

Blockchain may help solve several complex problems related to securing the integrity and trustworthiness of rapid, distributed, complex energy transactions and data exchanges. In a move towards grid resilience, blockchain commoditizes trust and enables automated smart contracts to support auditable multiparty transactions based on predefined rules between distributed energy providers and customers. Blockchain based smart contracts also help remove the need to interact with third-parties, facilitating the adoption and monetization of distributed energy transactions and exchanges, both energy flows as well as financial transactions. This may help reduce transactive energy costs and increase the security and sustainability of distributed energy resource (DER) integration, helping to remove barriers to a more decentralized and resilient power grid. This paper explores the application of blockchain and smart contracts to improve smart grid cyber resiliency and secure transactive energy applications.

Esther Mengelkamp, Benedikt Notheisen, Carolin Beer, David Dauer · 5 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

J. Alejandro F. Castellanos, D. Coll-Mayor, Jose Antonio Notholt

The diversity of energy prosumer types makes it difficult to create appropriate incentive mechanisms that satisfy both prosumers and energy system operators alike. Meanwhile, European energy suppliers buy Guarantees of Origin (GoO) which allow them to sell green energy at premium prices while in reality delivering grey energy to their customers. Blockchain technology has proven itself to be a robust paying system in which users transact money without the involvement of a third party. Blockchain tokens can be used to represent a unit of energy and, just as GoOs, be submitted to the market. This paper focuses on simulating marketplace using the Ethereum Blockchain and Smart Contracts, where prosumers can sell tokenized GoOs to consumers willing to subsidize renewable energy producers. Such markets bypass energy providers by allowing consumers to obtain tokenized GoOs directly from the producers, which in turn benefit directly from the earnings. Two market strategies where tokens are sold as GoOs have been simulated. In the Fix Price Strategy prosumers sell their tokens to the average GoO price of 2014. The Variable Price Strategy focuses on selling tokens at a price range defined by the difference between grey and green energy. The study finds that the Ethereum Blockchain is robust enough to functions as a platform for tokenized GoO trading. Simulation results have been compared and the results indicate that prosumers earn significantly more money by following the Variable Price Strategy.

Eric Munsing, Jonathan Mather, Scott Moura

We present an architecture for peer-to-peer energy markets which can guarantee that operational constraints are respected and payments are fairly rendered, without relying on a centralized utility or microgrid aggregator. We demonstrate how to address trust, security, and transparency issues by using blockchains and smart contracts, two emerging technologies which can facilitate decentralized coordination between non-trusting agents. While blockchains are receiving considerable interest as a platform for distributed computation and data management, this is the first work to examine their use to facilitate distributed optimization and control. Using the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM), we pose a decentralized optimal power flow (OPF) model for scheduling a mix of batteries, shapable loads, and deferrable loads on an electricity distribution network. The DERs perform local optimization steps, and a smart contract on the blockchain serves as the ADMM coordinator, allowing the validity and optimality of the solution to be verified. The optimal schedule is securely stored on the blockchain, and payments can be automatically, securely, and trustlessly rendered without requiring a microgrid operator.

Jingwei Luo, Wencong Su, Alex Q. Huang

This paper proposes an innovative Bitcoin-style distributed transactional model, “Bit-Energy,” to enable transparent, auditable, and peer-to-peer energy transactions between active market participants directly without a central intermediary (e.g., distribution system operator) using radically different Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies. The proposed distributed platform is fully compatible with the existing distribution grid infrastructure. Case studies demonstrate the accuracy, robustness, effectiveness, and scalability of the proposed Bit-Energy platform under various operating conditions. The distributed platform contained in this paper can apply to many other smart grid applications.

Ioannis Kounelis, Gary Steri, Raimondo Giuliani, Dimitrios Geneiatakis · 6 authors

Micro-generation promises to greatly contribute to the energy balance of the energy grid; however, so far, its market penetration is going slow due to the few, or not-existing, direct economic benefits end-users would enjoy by deploying an in-house micro-generation system. In this paper, taking advantage of the potentialities of blockchain technologies, we propose a solar energy production and distribution architecture using smart contracts, a particular distributed ledger paradigm, to support automatic energy exchanges and auctions, potentially enabling a new, open and more fruitful, under an end-user perspective, energy micro-generation market. We present the conceptual design of the approach, as well the energy grid prototype and the control layer, running on the Ethereum platform. The proposed architecture has been implemented and validated through an in-house developed test-bed.

Kenji Tanaka, Kosuke Nagakubo, Rikiya Abe

As decentralized renewable energy has been installed into the present grid, millions of consumers and prosumers interacting each other over power grid. The variety of needs for exchanging energy would arise based on each customers' situation. The future electricity grid should be a bi-directional system with interconnected using distributed energy management software. Being able to provide a secure and decentralized control to these autonomous, peer-to-peer exchanges is one of the biggest challenges. We propose to use Blockchain-based electricity trading system with Digitalgrid router as an underlying platform because it could fit these requirements. Digitalgrid router, which consists back-to-back bi-directional digital inverters with software-based control, enables us to realize power exchange.

Eleonora Riva Sanseverino, Maria Luisa Di Silvestre, Pierluigi Gallo, Gaetano Zizzo · 5 authors

In recent years novel models for energy distribution appeared and islanded microgrids quest for new ways to exchange energy between consumers and producers without the need of central authorities. The blockchain mechanism has emerged as a distributed solution for recording energy transactions in power systems. The blockchain has been used to permit users bartering and selling energy and to keep track of such exchanges without exposing them to tampering. In this work, we consider a novel application of the blockchain in islanded microgrids that includes also annotating energy losses caused by energy transactions, in order to have a more realistic matching between the physical status of the energy grid and the consequent costs attributed to users. To validate our novel use of the blockchain, we carried out simulated experiments for an exemplary islanded microgrid, in which 3 main generators supply 6 load nodes. This validates the compatibility of this new cost attribution model with the supporting physical infrastructure. Preliminary results demonstrate that the superposition of energy transactions in a microgrid changes the distribution of losses in all paths, eventually due to the large reactive flows created by PV systems.