Blockchain Applications in Smart Grid: Challenges and Opportunities

The smart grid, envisioning a modernized and intelligent electric power system, stands to significantly benefit from the inclusion of blockchain technology in it. Blockchain offers a decentralized, secure, and tamper-proof platform that addresses various challenges faced by the conventional grid. This paper provides an introduction to blockchain technology, providing details about, its component, types of networks and consensus mechanisms used in it. It then highlights the diverse applications of blockchain across various industries. Subsequently this paper explores blockchain's application in the smart grid domain, emphasizing its potential to revolutionize peer to peer (P-2-P) energy trading, energy management, security and energy trading in Electric vehicle. Finally, the paper examines various challenges associated with the addition of blockchain into the smart grid, encompassing scalability, interoperability, security, data privacy, and regulatory limitations.