Energy Industry Use Cases
Blockchain technology applied to the energy industry
Smart Contracts
A smart contract is a set of condition, which agreed by interested parties, and stored in the blockchain. It scans the blockchain and it automatically performs the predefined actions, once the conditions are fulfilled. Once written in the blockchain, a smart contract has also become immutable, and will always be executed. In a transaction, a s. c. acts as a trusted escrow service.
Smart contracts are effectively programmes which are loaded into, and sit alongside traditional transactions within a blockchain, that can automatically execute pre‑definable code when called (for example, automatically executing the terms of a contract when trigger events occur).
P2P Energy Trading
Peer-to-peer energy (P2P) trading is the buying and selling of energy between two or more grid-connected parties: often in the form of solar energy, any excess energy can be transferred and sold to other users via a secure platform. Peer-to-peer energy trading allows consumers the choice to decide on whom they purchase electricity from, and who they sell it to.
Peer-to-peer energy trading platforms such as blockchain will allow consumers to share their excess energy amongst one another and control how it’s distributed through microgrids. Users who both sell and consume energy are called ‘prosumers’.
Managment of Renewable Certificate
In many cases, renewable energy certificates (RECs) are awarded on the basis of estimates and forecasts rather than on actual generation. With blockchain technology, distributed renewable energy producers (e. g. rooftop solar) can be awarded RECs in real time, as their power is generated.
Sensors and smart contracts can record and propagate real-time generation data throughout the network. With this new technology, public agencies administering RECs could reduce costs by streamlining data verification and automating REC awarding.
Blockchain-based Flexibility Market
The scope of the project is to enable small-scale distributed energy resources (DER) to participate in frequency regulation. The key problem is the coordinated and standardized utilization of distributed flexibility potentials to efficiently integrate renewables into the electricity market.
Grid Managment & System Operation
The integration of blockchain into the smart grid allows the community to maintain transactions in the system in a consensus manner. Transactions are performed with smart contracts. Transaction history is stored in the blockchain and duplicated to all full nodes. The blockchain provides immutability to the smart contracts and transaction data, by restricting a record to be changed or erased.
Electric Mobility
Blockchains might also play an important role in the development of electromobility, underpinning the platform that co-ordinates EV charging. EV owners would be able to stop at any charging station, including residential locations, that is registered on the blockchain and trade power for payment in real time, without any centralised intermediary required.
Education
Academic papers, reports, tutorials and webinars about blockchain technology and its applications to the energy industry
Blockchain Technology in Energy Markets
What is the impact of blockchain technology on electronic markets in the energy sector? In this interview with Electronic Markets, Dr. Tobias Paulun, chief strategy officer of the European Energy Exchange (EEX), explains where the leading European energy exchange recognizes potentials of blockchain technology compared to existing electronic platforms and which blockchain projects EEX is working on.
Blockchain in Energy Communities
This report aims at exploring the use of the distributed ledger paradigm to incentive the participation of the citizen to a truly free, open, and interoperable energy market, producing a feasibility study and a first demo testbed, taking also into consideration privacy, cybersecurity, and big-data issues of the smart-home in the Energy market context.
Blockchain for Smart Grid
This paper proposes the blockchain as a tool to manage transactions in the smart grid. Transactions are performed with smart contracts, and the network acts as a transaction verifier. The blockchain provides immutability of the transactions, which ensures every transaction between generators and consumers will always be executed. It also provides immutability to transaction history, which can be used for audit or solving a transaction dispute.
Design principles for blockchain and smart grid in the energy sector
This research paper presents simplified conceptual model of Peer-to-Peer trading in energy community and analysis discussing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of blockchain and smart contract systems in the Finnish energy sector.
Blockchain: Research and Applications
What blockchain can do for power grids?
The aim of this work is to provide an up-to-date comprehensive review of the peer-reviewed articles, the research projects, and the entrepreneurial efforts that consider the utilization of blockchain technology in the energy sector in general and, especially, in the power grid.
Blockchain-Based Peer-2-Peer Energy Trading
and Charging Payment System for EVs
This study proposed a peer-to-peer energy trading and charging payment system for electric vehicles based on blockchain technology. Users who have excess electricity which they can sell to the charging stations through smart contracts. Electric vehicle users can pay the charging bills through electronic wallets. It has been developed the electric vehicle’s automatic-payment system using the open-source platform Hyperledger fabric.