Blockchain Applications for Sustainable Energy

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To meet the challenge posed by global climate change, it is critical that our energy infrastructure reduce its carbon footprint and become more efficient. Based on my 30+ years of work in the area of systems and networking, since 2010, my team of more than 40 students and I have been engaged in a broad research program to use information systems and science to increase the efficiency and reduce the carbon footprint of energy systems. Our vision is to use computer science-based innovations to design, implement, and evaluate energy, clean-transportation, and electricity distribution systems, working with researchers in related disciplines, as well as with partners in industry. In the last six years, my team and I have achieved substantial progress. Building on this success, I seek funding to harness the latest developments in distributed systems to the goal of sustainability. Specifically, in the past few years, distributed ledger technologies, most prominently the blockchain, have been recognized as `game changers' for their potential to enable fast, immutable, secure, transparent, highly-available, highly-automated, and highly-decentralized systems with minimal transaction fees. It is widely believed that these technologies will cause fundamental changes to energy systems, making it possible for even small energy generators to compete on an equal footing with traditional utilities in the context of `transactive energy systems.' Although some visionaries have suggested using blockchains to support the energy transition, to date, there has been limited support for scalability, data privacy, and tamper-proof linking of physical assets to their digital representations. Hence, my team's long-term goal is to address these shortcomings. In support of this long-term goal, based on the detailed analysis of the best use cases for blockchains, my short-term research objectives are to investigate the use blockchains as the basis for renewable energy certificates of origin; peer-to-peer energy and flexibility trading in transactive energy grids; and transactive storage operation in virtual power plants. This research would advance the use of blockchains in energy systems, benefiting stakeholders including utilities, energy consumers, and energy regulators. It would also lead to a deeper understanding of how blockchains should be integrated into legacy systems, a topic of broad interest. The blockchain-based economy is expected to grow at an enormous pace in the next few years, potentially addressing a significant fraction of the world economy. My work will provide highly-marketable skills for students in this area, helping to supply the workforce for Canadian industries to become globally competitive. Thus, my work will not only make contributions to the field of energy systems and computer science, but also train students in cutting-edge computer science technologies that will be in great demand in Canada and the world.