A Permissioned Blockchain-Based Energy Management System for Renewable Energy Microgrids

Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy management is one of the most viable solutions to incentivize prosumers in renewable energy microgrids. As the application of blockchain expends from the finance field to energy field, blockchain technology provides a new opportunity for distributed energy systems. However, a distributed energy system based on blockchains allows any node in the whole network to read data. In many application scenarios, user privacy cannot be effectively protected, and there is a security problem that the attack cannot be traced. In this paper, we propose an energy management mode based on a permissioned blockchain for a renewable energy microgrid. The novel permissioned blockchain framework uses entity mapping with a unique identity for each enterprise, natural person, or device, in order to avoid ineligible participants to join the microgrid. Each peer entity keeps the transaction information index of the whole network, but only keeps its own specific transaction information, so they can retrieve the transaction information of other peer entities but cannot obtain the details without permission. Moreover, this model could avoid communication delays and promote plug-and-play due to the distributed nature of the permissioned blockchain. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated with a demonstration program which is designed and deployed on a Hyperledger Fabric permissioned blockchain. Simulation results show the feasibility of the proposed method, and the model is conducive to the protection privacy and P2P energy management for decentralized energy systems.