Grid-Edge Blockchain-Based Transactive Energy Platform: Design and implementation

With the upward trend of the active participation of distributed energy resources (DERs) and grid-edge assets in grid and market operations, there is increased interest in transactive energy (TE) systems that support both peer-to-market and peer-to-peer energy exchanges. Peer-to-market transactions generally involve the market-based provision of grid services by prosumers (owners and operators of grid-edge assets, or their agents). Peer-to-peer transactions include bilateral exchanges of energy and energy derivatives among prosumers. Associated with this trend, there is growing interest in the potential use of blockchain technology to facilitate and enhance the security of transactive exchanges and streamline the associated settlement processes. This article presents a blockchain-based transactive energy BCTE (BCTE) platform design that supports peer-to-peer and peer-to-market transactive exchanges from grid-edge assets. An energy-blockchain-as-a-service (EBaaS) platform implementation is discussed, along with an illustrative use case.