Blockchains for Transactive Energy Systems: Opportunities, Challenges, and Approaches

Scott Eisele, Carlos Barreto, Abhishek Dubey, Xenofon Koutsoukos, Taha Eghtesad, Aron Laszka, Anastasia Mavridou

IEEE Computer 2020

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Why This Matters

Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies enable new possibilities for decentralized energy trading and peer-to-peer electricity markets, but their practical adoption faces significant challenges related to security, efficiency, and integration with existing infrastructure. Understanding these challenges is essential for designing systems that can leverage blockchain benefits while maintaining operational reliability and security. This work is innovative because it systematically analyzes the trade-offs inherent in blockchain-based energy systems and provides practical solutions for addressing key implementation challenges.

What We Did

This paper examines blockchain technology and smart contracts for transactive energy systems, analyzing opportunities, challenges, and approaches for implementing blockchain-based electricity markets. The work discusses implementation of TRANSAX, a blockchain-based transactive energy system that provides efficient, safe, and privacy-preserving markets built on smart contracts. The analysis covers code complexity, privacy concerns, computational efficiency, integration challenges, and security vulnerabilities specific to blockchain-based energy systems.

Key Results

The paper presents TRANSAX, a working blockchain-based transactive energy system that demonstrates practical approaches for implementing markets with complex computational requirements. Results show that blockchain-based systems can support transactive energy operations while maintaining system efficiency through hybrid solver patterns and careful smart contract design. The work demonstrates that blockchain technology can enable decentralized energy markets while addressing practical challenges through appropriate architectural choices.

Full Abstract

Cite This Paper

@article{eisele2020Blockchains,
  author = {Eisele, Scott and Barreto, Carlos and Dubey, Abhishek and Koutsoukos, Xenofon and Eghtesad, Taha and Laszka, Aron and Mavridou, Anastasia},
  journal = {IEEE Computer},
  title = {Blockchains for Transactive Energy Systems: Opportunities, Challenges, and Approaches},
  year = {2020},
  abstract = {The emergence of blockchains and smart contracts have renewed interest in electrical cyber-physical systems, especially in the area of transactive energy systems. However, despite recent advances, there remain significant challenges that impede the practical adoption of blockchains in transactive energy systems, which include implementing complex market mechanisms in smart contracts, ensuring safety of the power system, and protecting residential consumers’ privacy. To address these challenges, we present TRANSAX, a blockchain-based transactive energy system that provides an efficient, safe, and  privacy-preserving market built on smart contracts. Implementation and deployment of TRANSAX in a verifiably correct and efficient way is based on VeriSolid, a framework for the correct-by-construction development of smart contracts, and RIAPS, a middleware for resilient distributed power systems},
  contribution = {lead},
  tag = {platform,decentralization,power},
  keywords = {blockchain, transactive energy systems, smart contracts, decentralized markets, energy trading, peer-to-peer energy systems}
}
Quick Info
Year 2020
Keywords
blockchain transactive energy systems smart contracts decentralized markets energy trading peer-to-peer energy systems
Research Areas
energy CPS middleware
Search Tags

Blockchains, Transactive, Energy, Systems, Opportunities, Challenges, Approaches, blockchain, transactive energy systems, smart contracts, decentralized markets, energy trading, peer-to-peer energy systems, energy, CPS, middleware, 2020, Eisele, Barreto, Dubey, Koutsoukos, Eghtesad, Laszka, Mavridou