Synergies and scaling of use case combinations in the field of asset logging and labeling

Abstract

The digitalization of the energy sector enables a broad range of new digital use cases and business models. For instance, blockchain-technology can be used for the verification of tamper-resistant storage of asset data (asset logging) or manipulation-resistant guarantees of origin for electricity (labeling). Yet, it is associated with high implementation and operating effort. But many of these use cases require similar players, interfaces, data sets and data processing, so that synergies can result from a joint implementation. We thus evaluate these synergies in implementation and operating effort for use cases in the field of asset logging and labeling using a bottom-up evaluation of the components based on a methodology of Dossow (Energies 16:2424, 2022). Additionally, we extend this methodology to analyze the scalability of the use cases by assessing the relative effort reduction for an increasing number of players involved. The analysis already shows substantial synergies for combinations of two use cases. Yet, especially for combinations of three or more use cases a high effort reduction potential is derived. The highest synergies are obtained among the asset logging use cases, while a combination of asset logging and labeling use cases shows lower synergies in comparison. The analysis of the scaling of the use cases demonstrates that for labeling use cases the main effort driver is the number of consumers, while for asset logging use cases the number of asset operators shows to be more relevant. Thus, scaling effects outweigh the effort reduction potential of use case combinations especially for combinations of asset logging and labeling cases.