Decentralized peer-to-peer energy trading strategy in energy blockchain environment: A game-theoretic approach

Abstract

With the proposed concept of energy blockchain, peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading between prosumers is regarded as a potential way for future power market development. However, existing P2P energy trading often has problems such as low trading efficiency and significant communication losses. This paper presents an energy trading strategy in the blockchain environment to solve the problems of P2P energy trading. First, the type of market is determined based on energy supply and demand. Then, a Stackelberg game is used to establish a two-layer model of the leader (upper) and follower (lower) to determine the price. In addition, we propose an energy trading method based on feasible regions. The trading strategy considers the supply and demand of the market, provides an accurate energy transfer signal, and can help energy blockchain achieve better “self-sufficiency”. A case study proves the effectiveness of the strategy. Compared with the existing methods, the strategy proposed in this paper considers the market type and can promote the coordination and complementation of energy in the microgrid, and improve trading efficiency and reduce communication loss without sacrificing privacy. This study demonstrates that P2P power trading has brought benefits to prosumers, has promoted the development of the energy market, and has shown the massive potential of energy blockchain.