Our colleagues from the Technical University of Cluj, Romania (TUC) published the following documents on DLT and the use of blockchain technology in smart grids:
Antal, C.; Cioara, T.; Anghel, I.; Antal, M.; Salomie, I. Distributed Ledger Technology Review and Decentralized Applications Development Guidelines. Future Internet 2021, 13, 62. https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/13/3/62
In this paper, we provide a comprehensive overview of DLT analyzing the challenges, provided solutions or alternatives, and their usage for developing decentralized applications. We define a three-tier based architecture for DLT applications to systematically classify the technology solutions described in over 100 papers and startup initiatives. The paper closes with a discussion on challenges and opportunities for developing decentralized applications by providing a multi-step guideline for decentralizing the design and implementation of traditional systems.
T. Cioara, M. Antal, V. T. Mihailescu, C. D. Antal, I. M. Anghel and D. Mitrea, “Blockchain-Based Decentralized Virtual Power Plants of Small Prosumers”, in IEEE Access, vol. 9, pp. 29490-29504, 2021. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9353538
In this paper, we propose to use public blockchain and self-enforcing smart contracts to construct Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) of prosumers to provide energy services. A model has been defined for capturing the prosumer level constraints in terms of available energy profiles and energy service requirements enabling their optimal aggregation in hierarchical structures. A lightweight decentralized solution for VPPs construction is implemented using smart contracts enabling its efficient running on the public blockchain. The VPP will be managed on top of a distributed ledger technology offering decentralized functionality for tracking and validating the delivery of energy based on the blockchain transactions and for energy and financial settlement, the remuneration being done according to the amount of energy provided by individual prosumers.
T. Cioara, C. Pop, R. Zanc, I. Anghel, M. Antal and I. Salomie, “Smart Grid Management Using Blockchain: Future Scenarios and Challenges”, 2020 19th RoEduNet Conference: Networking in Education and Research (RoEduNet), Bucharest, Romania, 2020, pp. 1-5. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9324874
In this paper, we define a layered architecture of a blockchain-based smart grid management platform featuring energy data metering and tamper-proof registration, business enforcement via smart contracts, and Oracle-based integration of high computational services supporting the implementation of future grid management scenarios. Three such scenarios are discussed from the perspective of their implementation using the proposed blockchain platform and associated challenges: peer to peer energy trading, decentralized management, and aggregation of energy flexibility and operation of community oriented Virtual Power Plants.
