Secure data exchange between IoT endpoints for energy balancing using distributed ledger

Abstract

This paper investigates a secure data exchange between many small distributed consumers/prosumers and the aggregator in the process of energy balancing. It addresses the challenges of ensuring data exchange in a simple, scalable, and affordable way. The communication platform for data exchange is using Ethereum Blockchain technology. It provides a distributed ledger database across a distributed network, supports simple connectivity for new stakeholders, and enables many small entities to contribute with their flexible energy to the system balancing. The architecture of a simulation/emulation environment provides a direct connection of a relational database to the Ethereum network, thus enabling dynamic data management. In addition, it extends security of the environment with security mechanisms of relational databases. Proof-of-concept setup with the simulation of system balancing processes, confirms the suitability of the solution for secure data exchange in the market, operation, and measurement area. For the most intensive and space-consuming measurement data exchange, we have investigated data aggregation to ensure performance optimisation of required computation and space usage.