SBIR Phase I: Transforming Complex Utility Transaction Management

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是授权6800万美国天然气消费者在真实的时间知道他们的交易状态，有更多的和持续的控制他们的交易，结算交易的增量小于行业？的当前月度会计周期，并享有极高的安全级别。它们的交易成本将降低，速度将提高，从而释放出行业能力和资源，以更高的价值用于其他地方。这一创新将使天然气行业的其他人能够更好地考虑交易流程，并进行创新-在行业效率方面采用许多想法。这一创新也将适用于以多重复杂、多方交易为特征的其他行业;特别是电力公用事业行业，并可能为更广泛的放松管制和消费者控制提供催化剂。SBIR第一阶段项目旨在探索如何使用区块链创新和相关技术改造复杂的天然气公用事业交易管理流程，包括生产，传输，分配和消费功能。美国公用事业以其目前的实际形式运作了世纪多。在过去的四十年里，该行业通过各种政策和监管行动，向数千方开放交易参与。在过去的二十年里，数字技术使交易功能能够相互对话并自动执行某些功能。尽管取得了这些进展，但公用事业交易管理流程基本上是几十年前创建的。它们仍然需要大量的人为干预，仍然高度分割，并且几乎没有采用当今可用的数字智能和安全技术。现在支持该行业的各种技术？的七步交易流程将被映射，评估区块链技术应用，然后整合到一个单一的平台。关键的挑战是创建变革性技术，将众多其他现有技术应用程序和数据交换格式和协议集成在一起，而不屈服于定制，定制会抑制创新的变革性，并使其无法作为多方后续行业创新的平台。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is empowering the 68 million U.S. natural gas consumers to know their transaction status in real time, have more and continual control of their transactions, settle transactions in increments less than the industry?s current monthly accounting cycle and enjoy an extremely high level of security. Their transaction cost will be reduced and speed increased, freeing industry capacity and resources to be employed elsewhere at greater value. This innovation will allow others in the natural gas industry to better consider transaction processes and themselves innovate - employing many minds on industry efficiency. This innovation will also have application to other industries characterized by multiple complex, multi-party transactions; particularly the electric utility industry and possibly providing the catalyst for more extensive deregulation and consumer control.This SBIR Phase I project proposes to discover how to transform complex natural gas utility transaction management processes using Blockchain innovations and related technologies across production, transmission, distribution and consumption functions. The United States utility industry has operated in its present physical form for more than a century. Over the past four decades the industry has evolved through various policy and regulatory actions to open transaction participation to thousands of parties. During the past two decades, digital technologies enabled transaction functions to talk to each other and perform some functions automatically. Despite this progress, utility transaction management processes are essentially those created decades ago. They still require significant human intervention, remain highly segmented and employ little digital intelligence and security technology available today. The various technologies now supporting the industry?s seven step transaction processes will be mapped, assessed for Blockchain technology application and then consolidated into a single platform. The key challenge is to create transformative technology integrating the numerous other existing technology applications and data exchange formats and protocols without succumbing to customization which then mutes the transformative nature of the innovation and renders it ineffective as a platform to subsequent industry innovation by multiple parties.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.