Energy Trading in a Decentralized Blockchain Based Energy Network

Future energy systems are decentralized, distributed, and digitalized with more green energy being integrated into the power grid. Power grid has become more complex to be centrally managed and the issue of data transparency has deprived consumers the freedom of choice in energy markets. Increasing number of prosumers giving back energy into the power grid has been found to be beneficial and there is no proper protocol for compensating them financially for giving back their energy into the power grid. In this paper, we utilized the power of blockchain technology to organize smart grid prosumers as a network of blockchain nodes that can group themselves as micro grids to trade energy in their local environments. The proposed blockchain technology also facilitates instant payments to trading prosumers without the need of a third party. The financial settlement between peers in the micro grid is done using cyber currency (Ether). The proposed prototype is implemented using Ethereum platform and the language used is Solidity. The validation of results were acquired by deploying the blockchain locally on the computer and for better user interface (UI) interactions, the blockchain was deployed on Remix online platform. The results show that microgrids can be balanced in real time, therefore balancing the entire smart grid that is made up of multiple microgrids.