Blockchain for Transactive Energy Management of Distributed Energy Resources in Smart Grid

TL;DR

This paper proposes a blockchain-based system for secure, transparent transactive energy management among distributed energy resources, utilizing a distributed optimization algorithm and smart contracts, validated through real-world experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel blockchain platform integrated with a distributed ADMM algorithm for efficient energy trading among DERs, ensuring transparency and correctness.

Findings

The blockchain system effectively supports energy trading among DERs.

Experimental results confirm the system's feasibility and efficiency.

The approach enhances trust and coordination in smart grid energy management.

Abstract

This work presents the design and implementation of a blockchain system that enables the trustable transactive energy management for distributed energy resources (DERs). We model the interactions among DERs, including energy trading and flexible appliance scheduling, as a cost minimization problem. Considering the dispersed nature and diverse ownership of DERs, we develop a distributed algorithm to solve the optimization problem using the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) method. Furthermore, we develop a blockchain system, on which we implement the proposed algorithm with the smart contract, to guarantee the transparency and correctness of the energy management. We prototype the blockchain in a small-scale test network and evaluate it through experiments using real-world data. The experimental results validate the feasibility and effectiveness of our design.