Distributed Ledger Technologies for Peer-to-Peer Local Markets in Distribution Networks

Abstract

The newest Distributed Ledger Technology platforms, which delegate the execution of complex tasks in the form of Smart Contracts, make it possible to devise novel local electricity market frameworks, which are performed in a fully automated fashion. This paper proposes a novel fully automated platform for energy and ancillary service markets in distribution networks, able to run in a decentralized fashion, bypassing the need for a physical central authority. The proposed platform, able to perform the role of Virtual Decentralized Market Authority, shows excellent potential applications in the management of local ancillary service markets in local energy communities of various sizes. The proposed Virtual Decentralized Market Authority showed reasonable running costs and comparable technical management capabilities with respect to a physical, centralized managing authority.

How Can Blockchain Technology Accelerate Energy Efficiency Interventions? A Use Case Comparison

“…Based on the blockchain application areas suggested in the literature, we select three dominant energy efficiency use cases to test whether a blockchain application is feasible and outline a possible blockchain design. The selected cases are P2P energy trading, as it is by far the most prominent research topic within the energy trading systems [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. We consider P2P energy trading as a valid case, as the inserting of renewable energy increases system efficiency, particularly regarding the significant potential of IoT devices to improve grid and load management [15,30,49,62,63].…”

“…These constraints are suggested by the literature to be addressed by blockchain technology and smart contracts. [19,23,26,28,30,32,33]. In addition, blockchain provides more robust privacy features.…”

“…Although this application area is the well discussed in academic literature as an attractive use case (see, e.g., [15,19,23,26,27,30,33,70,91]) blockchain-based P2P energy trading is still only at a concept or prototype stage concerning its actual application in practice [15]. The main technical challenge for this system is to balance the blockchain trade-offs to provide the required scalability and transaction throughput, while simultaneously not compromising the systems cost-efficiency, decentralisation and security [19,23,27]. In the decision framework analysis, we find that a private permissionless blockchain is most applicable.…”

“…With this, we mean that everyone has access to the network, but the specific transaction data is anonymous or private. Most P2P case studies currently use a form of Ethereum with privacy features [15,16,23,28]. Di Silvestre et al [22] further outline and discuss multiple other blockchains, such as Tendermint, Multichain and Hyperledger Fabric for this case.…”

“…In the context of energy efficiency, the literature suggests blockchain technology to be relevant in mainly three application areas. First, blockchain could enable innovative energy trading systems, such as P2P energy trading [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30], electric vehicle charging [15,31] and energy markets [22,27,[32][33][34][35]. Second, blockchain could serve as a distributed accounting and trading platform for the energy efficiency White Certificate Schemes (WCS) [15].…”