An Industrial Prototype of Trusted Energy Performance Contracts Using Blockchain Technologies

Abstract

Energy conservation measurements in buildings are more and more popular as they benefit from an intelligent contractual framework called Energy Performance Contracts (EPC), where energy savings are measured as the difference between a predictive baseline model and the actual consumption. While modern predictive models make use of large amounts of data from external sources and increasingly complex algorithms, these two aspects make their use difficult in practice because they need mutual understanding and transparency, requiring the involvement of a third-party for auditing. In this sense, we designed and developed a prototype that overcomes these issues by storing the predictive models and the data in an immutable blockchained data structure using the Ethereum framework. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first working prototype using the blockchain technology applied to EPCs. This paper presents and discusses the technical solutions and best-practice guidelines adopted in this prototype.

A Survey on Challenges and Progresses in Blockchain Technologies: A Performance and Security Perspective

“…Energy conservation measurements in buildings are measured as the difference between a predictive baseline model and the actual consumption, and the actual application involves a large amounts of data and often requires a third-party for auditing. The work in [64] develops a prototype for fair and trustable energy performance contracts, which stores the predictive models and the data in an immutable Ethereum based distributed ledger.…”

A Systematic Analysis of Real-World Energy Blockchain Initiatives

“…However, energy blockchains can also deliver value and efficiencies for commercial and industrial customers. For example, energy blockchains and smart contracts have been proposed to manage energy performance contracts between clients and service providers, whereby measured data, analytics models and contractual obligations are stored within an immutable ledger to promote trust between stakeholders [2]. Another compelling set of energy applications are emerging around vehicle-to-grid integrations and services, where the adoption of blockchain technologies and smart contracts can be used to develop decentralised applications for (a) identifying charging stations based on journey routing, battery status and current traffic conditions, and (b) settling payments at charging stations [13].…”

“…However, large-scale and grid-integrated energy blockchains needed to facilitate real-world operations are commonly owned by private entities with a strong commercial focus, which can naturally impede the dissemination of technical specifications, energy market models and engineering knowledge to the wider research community. Although innovative and important research can be undertaken within small-scale experimental environments, research efforts focused on developing high-impact and commercial-oriented energy blockchains should integrate and interoperate with existing private and public infrastructure [2]. This includes the establishment of information streams between physical metering and energy blockchains, which has been highlighted as an important challenge for system regulators and energy providers [3].…”

“…These economically imbalanced blockchains are somewhat synonymous with the proof-of-work consensus model, where computationally intensive cryptographic problems must be solved to commit transactions. Additionally, other scalability concerns pertaining to memory and compute limitations may arise when advanced models (e.g., machine learning) and ancillary operating data are embedded within the blockchain [2]. Therefore, engineers must carefully consider which assets belong inside and outside the blockchain to promote scalability [3,5].…”

“…Market policies and logic are needed to ensure the trust and security characteristics of blockchain technology are not circumvented by ambiguous transactional data, or inaccurate business logic. Such market challenges may include the development of formal methods to identify, calculate and settle energy losses between different combinations of market participants [5], and the introduction of formal and trusted methods to manage the temporal lifecycle of smart contracts as terms and conditions change [2].…”