Blockchain and internet of things for electrical energy decentralization: A review and system architecture

Decentralization in electrical power grids has gained increasing importance, especially in the last two decades, since transmission system operators (TSO), distribution system operators (DSO) and consumers are more aware of energy efficiency and energy sustainability issues. Therefore, globally, due to the introduction of energy production technologies near the consumers, in residential and industrial sectors, new scenarios of decentralized energy production (DEP) are emerging. To guarantee an adequate power management in the electrical power grids, incorporating producers, consumers, and producers-consumers, commonly designated as prosumers together, it is important to adopt intelligent systems and platforms that allow the provision of information on energy consumption and production in real time, as well as for obtaining the price for the sale and purchase of energy. In this research the literature is analysed to identify the appropriate solutions to implement a decentralized electrical power grid based on sensors, blockchain and smart contracts, evaluating the current state of the art and pilot projects already in place. A conceptual model for a power grid model is presented, with renewable energy production, combining Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain and smart contracts.A descentralização nas redes elétricas ganhou importância crescente, especialmente nas últimas duas décadas, uma vez que os operadores da rede de transporte (ORT), operadores da rede de distribuição (ORD) e consumidores estão mais conscientes das questões de eficiência energética e sustentabilidade energética. Globalmente, devido à introdução de tecnologias de produção de energia junto dos consumidores, nos setores residencial e industrial, estão a surgir novos cenários de produção de energia descentralizada. Para garantir uma adequada gestão de energia nas redes elétricas, integrando produtores, consumidores e produtores-consumidores, vulgarmente designados por prosumers, é importante adotar sistemas e plataformas inteligentes que permitam fornecer informações sobre consumo e produção de energia em tempo real, bem como para obter o preço de compra e venda de energia. Nesta pesquisa, a literatura é analisada para identificar as soluções adequadas para implementar uma rede elétrica descentralizada baseada em sensores, blockchain e contratos inteligentes, avaliando o estado da arte atual e projetos piloto já em curso. É apresentado um modelo conceptual para um modelo de rede elétrica, com produção de energia renovável, combinando Internet das Coisas (IoT), blockchain e contratos inteligentes

When energy trading meets blockchain in electrical power system: The state of the art

With the rapid growth of renewable energy resources, energy trading has been shifting from the centralized manner to distributed manner. Blockchain, as a distributed public ledger technology, has been widely adopted in the design of new energy trading schemes. However, there are many challenging issues in blockchain-based energy trading, e.g., low efficiency, high transaction cost, and security and privacy issues. To tackle these challenges, many solutions have been proposed. In this survey, the blockchain-based energy trading in the electrical power system is thoroughly investigated. Firstly, the challenges in blockchain-based energy trading are identified and summarized. Then, the existing energy trading schemes are studied and classified into three categories based on their main focuses: energy transaction, consensus mechanism, and system optimization. Blockchain-based energy trading has been a popular research topic, new blockchain architectures, models and products are continually emerging to overcome the limitations of existing solutions, forming a virtuous circle. The internal combination of different blockchain types and the combination of blockchain with other technologies improve the blockchain-based energy trading system to better satisfy the practical requirements of modern power systems. However, there are still some problems to be solved, for example, the lack of regulatory system, environmental challenges and so on. In the future, we will strive for a better optimized structure and establish a comprehensive security assessment model for blockchain-based energy trading system.This research was funded by Beijing Natural Science Foundation (grant number 4182060).Scopu

Integration of Blockchain and Auction Models: A Survey, Some Applications, and Challenges

In recent years, blockchain has gained widespread attention as an emerging technology for decentralization, transparency, and immutability in advancing online activities over public networks. As an essential market process, auctions have been well studied and applied in many business fields due to their efficiency and contributions to fair trade. Complementary features between blockchain and auction models trigger a great potential for research and innovation. On the one hand, the decentralized nature of blockchain can provide a trustworthy, secure, and cost-effective mechanism to manage the auction process; on the other hand, auction models can be utilized to design incentive and consensus protocols in blockchain architectures. These opportunities have attracted enormous research and innovation activities in both academia and industry; however, there is a lack of an in-depth review of existing solutions and achievements. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive state-of-the-art survey of these two research topics. We review the existing solutions for integrating blockchain and auction models, with some application-oriented taxonomies generated. Additionally, we highlight some open research challenges and future directions towards integrated blockchain-auction models

μGIM - Microgrid intelligent management system based on a multi-agent approach and the active participation of end-users

[ES] Los sistemas de potencia y energía están cambiando su paradigma tradicional, de sistemas centralizados a sistemas descentralizados. La aparición de redes inteligentes permite la integración de recursos energéticos descentralizados y promueve la gestión inclusiva que involucra a los usuarios finales, impulsada por la gestión del lado de la demanda, la energía transactiva y la respuesta a la demanda. Garantizar la escalabilidad y la estabilidad del servicio proporcionado por la red, en este nuevo paradigma de redes inteligentes, es más difícil porque no hay una única sala de operaciones centralizada donde se tomen todas las decisiones. Para implementar con éxito redes inteligentes, es necesario combinar esfuerzos entre la ingeniería eléctrica y la ingeniería informática. La ingeniería eléctrica debe garantizar el correcto funcionamiento físico de las redes inteligentes y de sus componentes, estableciendo las bases para un adecuado monitoreo, control, gestión, y métodos de operación. La ingeniería informática desempeña un papel importante al proporcionar los modelos y herramientas computacionales adecuados para administrar y operar la red inteligente y sus partes constituyentes, representando adecuadamente a todos los diferentes actores involucrados. Estos modelos deben considerar los objetivos individuales y comunes de los actores que proporcionan las bases para garantizar interacciones competitivas y cooperativas capaces de satisfacer a los actores individuales, así como cumplir con los requisitos comunes con respecto a la sostenibilidad técnica, ambiental y económica del Sistema. La naturaleza distribuida de las redes inteligentes permite, incentiva y beneficia enormemente la participación activa de los usuarios finales, desde actores grandes hasta actores más pequeños, como los consumidores residenciales. Uno de los principales problemas en la planificación y operación de redes eléctricas es la variación de la demanda de energía, que a menudo se duplica más que durante las horas pico en comparación con la demanda fuera de pico. Tradicionalmente, esta variación dio como resultado la construcción de plantas de generación de energía y grandes inversiones en líneas de red y subestaciones. El uso masivo de fuentes de energía renovables implica mayor volatilidad en lo relativo a la generación, lo que hace que sea más difícil equilibrar el consumo y la generación. La participación de los actores de la red inteligente, habilitada por la energía transactiva y la respuesta a la demanda, puede proporcionar flexibilidad en desde el punto de vista de la demanda, facilitando la operación del sistema y haciendo frente a la creciente participación de las energías renovables. En el ámbito de las redes inteligentes, es posible construir y operar redes más pequeñas, llamadas microrredes. Esas son redes geográficamente limitadas con gestión y operación local. Pueden verse como áreas geográficas restringidas para las cuales la red eléctrica generalmente opera físicamente conectada a la red principal, pero también puede operar en modo isla, lo que proporciona independencia de la red principal. Esta investigación de doctorado, realizada bajo el Programa de Doctorado en Ingeniería Informática de la Universidad de Salamanca, aborda el estudio y el análisis de la gestión de microrredes, considerando la participación activa de los usuarios finales y la gestión energética de lascarga eléctrica y los recursos energéticos de los usuarios finales. En este trabajo de investigación se ha analizado el uso de conceptos de ingeniería informática, particularmente del campo de la inteligencia artificial, para apoyar la gestión de las microrredes, proponiendo un sistema de gestión inteligente de microrredes (μGIM) basado en un enfoque de múltiples agentes y en la participación activa de usuarios. Esta solución se compone de tres sistemas que combinan hardware y software: el emulador de virtual a realidad (V2R), el enchufe inteligente de conciencia ambiental de Internet de las cosas (EnAPlug), y la computadora de placa única para energía basada en el agente (S4E) para permitir la gestión del lado de la demanda y la energía transactiva. Estos sistemas fueron concebidos, desarrollados y probados para permitir la validación de metodologías de gestión de microrredes, es decir, para la participación de los usuarios finales y para la optimización inteligente de los recursos. Este documento presenta todos los principales modelos y resultados obtenidos durante esta investigación de doctorado, con respecto a análisis de vanguardia, concepción de sistemas, desarrollo de sistemas, resultados de experimentación y descubrimientos principales. Los sistemas se han evaluado en escenarios reales, desde laboratorios hasta sitios piloto. En total, se han publicado veinte artículos científicos, de los cuales nueve se han hecho en revistas especializadas. Esta investigación de doctorado realizó contribuciones a dos proyectos H2020 (DOMINOES y DREAM-GO), dos proyectos ITEA (M2MGrids y SPEAR), tres proyectos portugueses (SIMOCE, NetEffiCity y AVIGAE) y un proyecto con financiación en cascada H2020 (Eco-Rural -IoT)

Blockchain technology research and application: a systematic literature review and future trends

Blockchain, as the basis for cryptocurrencies, has received extensive attentions recently. Blockchain serves as an immutable distributed ledger technology which allows transactions to be carried out credibly in a decentralized environment. Blockchain-based applications are springing up, covering numerous fields including financial services, reputation system and Internet of Things (IoT), and so on. However, there are still many challenges of blockchain technology such as scalability, security and other issues waiting to be overcome. This article provides a comprehensive overview of blockchain technology and its applications. We begin with a summary of the development of blockchain, and then give an overview of the blockchain architecture and a systematic review of the research and application of blockchain technology in different fields from the perspective of academic research and industry technology. Furthermore, technical challenges and recent developments are also briefly listed. We also looked at the possible future trends of blockchain

Reinforcement Learning Based Cooperative P2P Energy Trading between DC Nanogrid Clusters with Wind and PV Energy Resources

In order to replace fossil fuels with the use of renewable energy resources, unbalanced resource production of intermittent wind and photovoltaic (PV) power is a critical issue for peer-to-peer (P2P) power trading. To resolve this problem, a reinforcement learning (RL) technique is introduced in this paper. For RL, graph convolutional network (GCN) and bi-directional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) network are jointly applied to P2P power trading between nanogrid clusters based on cooperative game theory. The flexible and reliable DC nanogrid is suitable to integrate renewable energy for distribution system. Each local nanogrid cluster takes the position of prosumer, focusing on power production and consumption simultaneously. For the power management of nanogrid clusters, multi-objective optimization is applied to each local nanogrid cluster with the Internet of Things (IoT) technology. Charging/discharging of electric vehicle (EV) is performed considering the intermittent characteristics of wind and PV power production. RL algorithms, such as deep Q-learning network (DQN), deep recurrent Q-learning network (DRQN), Bi-DRQN, proximal policy optimization (PPO), GCN-DQN, GCN-DRQN, GCN-Bi-DRQN, and GCN-PPO, are used for simulations. Consequently, the cooperative P2P power trading system maximizes the profit utilizing the time of use (ToU) tariff-based electricity cost and system marginal price (SMP), and minimizes the amount of grid power consumption. Power management of nanogrid clusters with P2P power trading is simulated on the distribution test feeder in real-time and proposed GCN-PPO technique reduces the electricity cost of nanogrid clusters by 36.7%.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, to be submitted to Applied Energy of Elsevie