Analysis of Blockchain Assisted Energy Sharing Algorithms with Realistic Data Across Microgrids

TL;DR

This paper evaluates centralized, peer-to-peer, and a novel selfish energy sharing algorithm across microgrids, demonstrating their effectiveness in reducing grid dependency and enhancing energy sharing efficiency using realistic data.

Contribution

It introduces the Selfish Sharing algorithm and compares three energy sharing strategies across different microgrid scenarios with real data.

Findings

Sharing algorithms reduce grid dependency by around 6%.

Peer-to-peer sharing outperforms other methods in cross-county microgrid sharing.

Battery trading combined with sharing improves energy distribution efficiency.

Abstract

With escalating energy demands, innovative solutions have emerged to supply energy affordably and sustainably. Energy sharing has also been proposed as a solution, addressing affordability issues while reducing consumers' greed. In this paper, we analyse the feasibility of two energy sharing algorithms, centralized and peer-to-peer, within two scenarios, between microgrids within a county, and between microgrids across counties. In addition, we propose a new sharing algorithm named Selfish Sharing, where prosumers take advantage of consumers' batteries in return for letting them consume part of the shared energy. The results for sharing between microgrids across counties show that the dependency on the grid could be reduced by approximately 5.72%, 6.12%, and 5.93% using the centralized, peer-to-peer and selfish sharing algorithms respectively, compared to trading only. The scenario of sharing between microgrids within a county has an average decrease in dependency on the grid by 5.66%, 6.0%, and 5.80% using the centralized, peer-to-peer and selfish algorithms respectively, compared to trading without sharing. We found that trading with batteries and the proposed sharing algorithms prove to be beneficial in the sharing between microgrids case. More specifically, the case of trading and sharing energy between microgrids across counties outperforms sharing within a county, with P2P sharing appearing to be superior.