Exploring the Blockchain Technology in Electricity Trading

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The salient features of the emerging smart grid electricity systems and energy markets include bidirectional**flow of energy, information, and money to and from the consumer/prosumer premises and across the**distribution grid. This requires new paradigms to accommodate multi-lateral transactive exchanges at**wholesale and retail levels. Blockchain is an emerging technology for peer-to-peer transaction platforms that**uses decentralised storage to record all transaction data. Recently, a large number of new applications have**been emerging that add to the technology's core functionality, i.e., the decentralised storage of transaction data,**by integrating mechanisms that allow for the actual transactions to be effected on a decentralised basis. These**mechanisms, called "smart contracts", operate on the basis of individually defined rules, e.g. specifications as**to quantity, quality, price, that enable an autonomous matching of distributed providers and their prospective**customers. The Grid Solutions Department at SNC-Lavalin is interested in investigating the applications of**blockchain and smart contract technologies in the area of peer-to-peer electricity trading. Throughout this**project we will investigate the potential use of blockchain technologies and smart contracts in electricity**peer-to-peer trading sector and to explore what opportunities these technologies may hold for energy customers**and energy consumers/prosumers. Consequently, throughout this research project, we plan to investigate**different use-cases in which blockchain and smart contracts technologies can be used in the electricity trading**industry. In particular, our objective is to investigate how blockchain and smart contract technologies can**enable establishing a fully decentralised energy system in which energy supply contracts are made directly**between energy producers and energy consumers, without involving a third-party intermediary, and carried out**automatically.