Abstract
Interconnected microgrids are becoming a building block in smart systems. Initiating secure and efficient energy trading mechanisms among networked microgrids for reliability and economic mutual benefits have become a crucial task. Recently, integrating blockchain technologies into the energy sector have gained significant amount of interest, e.g. transactive grid. This paper proposes a two-layer secured smart contract-based energy trading mechanism to allow microgrids to establish coalitions, adjust the electricity-trading price, and achieve transparent and decentralized secure transactions without intervention of a third trusted party. Since reliability benefits are main drivers of microgrids operation in islanded mode, a new decentralized smart contract based-energy trading model for islanded networked microgrids is proposed in the first layer with an objective to achieve demand generation balance. In the second layer, and to achieve a higher security, all executed contracts are verified and saved in a blockchain based on a new developed two-phase consensus method that utilizes practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (pBFT), and a modified Proof of Stake (PoS). Simulations are conducted in Python environment to validate the proposed energy trading model.
Highlights
The power grid is emerging from centralized power grid, with electric power plants connected to the transmission system, to a decentralized grid, with distributed renewable generating units connected directly to distribution networks close to demand consumption [1]
To tackle the above two challenges, this paper proposes a two-layer blockchain-based energy trading algorithm for a group of isolated interconnected microgrids
The two-layer algorithm develops a pre-conditioned smart contract-based energy trading in layer one, and a novel two-phase blockchain-based contract settlement protocol is developed in the second layer
Summary
The power grid is emerging from centralized power grid, with electric power plants connected to the transmission system, to a decentralized grid, with distributed renewable generating units connected directly to distribution networks close to demand consumption [1]. This constitutes one of the main drives of this work. The emergence of blockchain and the great attention given to it has led to tremendous amount of interest in using it within information infrastructure to assure secure and decentralized energy trading [3]. This fact is considered as a second driver of this work. In the U.S, the Brooklyn Microgrid project is an example of a first successful Peer-to-Peer (P2P) blockchain system operating through smart meters, where prosumers are able to trade energy based on pre-determined bid price [4]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
