A District Energy Management Approach Based on Internet of Things and Blockchain

The energy consumption while satisfying user comfort in the District Energy Management is a current crucial problem. This paper proposes an innovative system to improve the user behaviour using an approach based on Internet of Things (IoT) components, Blockchain, Smart Contract and a reward and penalty strategy. In particular, the IoT tools and sensors provide data about the energy consumption in real time. Moreover, a specifically designed Smart Contract stores data and allows adding a basic feature of the Blockchain: the payment management subject to a reward and penalty strategy. Indeed, the users are classified in consumption classes and each class is characterized by multiplier coefficient that increases (penalty) or decreases (reward) the user energy costs. In order to show the applicability and performance of the proposed approach, a case study is presented, considering the energy consumption and IoT data of a 2000 users district.