Energy mileage concept for local RE using blockchain technology

In the last decade, with the massive installation of VRE (Variable Renewable Energy) around the world, the importance of new type of research on energy model considering VRE's characteristics such as the spatial distribution and the intermittency has substantially increased. With the emergence of VRE, not only the traditional physical value of electricity but also its new values such as “demand and supply adjustment value” and REC (Renewable Energy Certificate) are also extensively discussed. So far, literatures on electricity system considering VRE mainly focus on its economic/market analysis or the transmission constraints, overlooking the possibility of VRE to provide new value as “locally produced electricity” when considering its geographically distributed attribute and the diversification of generator profile. This paper proposes the new concept “RE mileage” considering the distance between electricity generator and consumer as a new value of VRE. We model the virtual network of electricity transaction in the metropolitan area in Japan and show that “RE mileage” concept increases both players' utility and region's profitability. Moreover, there are some literatures discussing on the possibility that blockchain can be applied to energy transaction field thanks to its immutability in the context that distributed and diversified generators/consumers needs are swiftly fulfilled without giving the specific actor an authoritative position. However, there lacks the actual implementation of blockchain rendering it cooperate with smart meter and matching platform. This paper also proposes an architecture of electricity matching platform making all of the component including blockchain and smart meter cooperate together. This architecture is also implemented in our case study and we show its viability.