Blockchain technology in the energy sector: A systematic review of challenges and opportunities

Traditionally, the energy industry has been slow in adopting new disruptive technologies and the transition to a new energy market will require a new digital transformation plan, involving all parties from the energy market. Although it now seems to be an impossible and hard-to-accept scenario, especially by the big players in the industry, the pilot projects so far demonstrate that blockchain can play a major role in the future energy market, even if the technology is still in the first stages of the adoption life cycle. This article attempts to describe a solution to provide alternative irrigation systems for small farmers. The solution involves creating associations of small farmers that will use green energy from photovoltaic panels for the irrigation of agricultural lands. The efficiency of the proposed system can be monitored not only through digital hardware connected to photovoltaic panels and water pumps, but also by using the new blockchain technology that stimulates innovation and growth in the energy and a high level of automation though smart contracts. To accelerate the transition to the green energy economy, a SolarCoin version similar to the Bitcoin cryptocurrency has also been proposed, which is a utility token that creates new possibilities for energy and water trading.Sustainability 2020, 12, 1540 2 of 30 photovoltaic panels can still be used at high capacity to supplement the energy required to run the farm [4,12,13].Photovoltaic systems are ideal in isolated areas that do not have access to the national energy system. Below, the most important advantages of applying the photovoltaic systems in agriculture have been listed [14-16]:

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“…SolarCoin represents an alternative digital coin that uses a Proof-of-Stake blockchain to stimulate solar electricity production [49][50][51].…”

Section: Comparison Of the Advanced Methods For Energy Transactionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implementing Blockchain Technology in Irrigation Systems That Integrate Photovoltaic Energy Generation Systems

et al. 2020

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“…One trend that has emerged very recently is the interest in distributed AI and blockchain technology. Our recent review supported by the UK National Centre for Energy Systems Integration [4] identifies an explosion of interest in this space, with no less that 140 projects and start-ups looking at such settings, and a recent US Congressional Research Office [12] report highlights the importance of this technology in the energy space. While blockchains do have clear advantages in terms of assuring the traceability and enforcing transactions without requiring an intermediary like a utility company, they need to be complemented by AI/multiagent solutions to realise their full potential.…”

Section: Blockchains and Distributed Aimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In fact, Community Energy Scotland (an organisation supporting such projects in Scotland) lists no less than 300 projects on their website [3]. This has attracted a surge of interest and considerable investments in technologies enabling these settings, such as blockchain, machine learning (ML) and distributed Artificial Intelligence (AI) [4].Yet, there are substantial ethical and social questions to be asked in such developments. The AI community has begun to recognise the challenges posed by rapid adoption of AI in the real world, and a number of general guidelines have been proposed [5].…”

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confidence: 99%

Consider ethical and social challenges in smart grid research

et al. 2019

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Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are increasingly seen as key technologies for building more decentralised and resilient energy grids, but researchers must consider the ethical and social implications of their use Energy grids are undergoing rapid changes, requiring new ways both to process the large amounts of data generated from the power system, but also -increasingly -to take smart operational decisions [1].On the data side, the UK and most EU countries have committed to a target of offering a smart meter to every home by 2020 [2], with similar monitoring being installed in other parts of the energy network. This has led to some to refer to a "data tsunami", requiring development of new machine learning techniques to deal with the ensuing challenge of extracting useful information from this data -often in real time.Another trend is the use of AI techniques (such as those from multi-agent systems, computational game theory and decision making under uncertainty) to take autonomous allocation and control decisions. This is driven increasingly by the moves towards more decentralised energy systems, where prosumers (consumers with own micro-generation and storage) can generate and source their own electricity through peer-to-peer (P2P) trading in local energy markets and community energy schemes.To illustrate these trends from a UK perspective (with which the authors are most familiar), a number of projects are looking at computational techniques suitable for more decentralised energy future -including CESI (the UK National Centre for Energy Systems Integration) [23] and Responsive Flexibility, one of the largest smart energy demonstrators in the UK, focused on the islands of Orkney [26]. In fact, Community Energy Scotland (an organisation supporting such projects in Scotland) lists no less than 300 projects on their website [3]. This has attracted a surge of interest and considerable investments in technologies enabling these settings, such as blockchain, machine learning (ML) and distributed Artificial Intelligence (AI) [4].Yet, there are substantial ethical and social questions to be asked in such developments. The AI community has begun to recognise the challenges posed by rapid adoption of AI in the real world, and a number of general guidelines have been proposed [5]. Similarly, the smart grid community needs to consider the ethical challenges that the rapid adoption of AI and ML techniques to control our energy systems brings. In this piece, we discuss some domainspecific challenges and proposed solutions for adopting AI techniques to automate smart energy grids. We note our starting point is not purely generic AI ethical principles (although we have consulted recent reports, such as Floridi [5], which provide a useful guide). Rather, we consider the trends that have shaped AI adoption in smart grids in recent years, and illustrate the type of ethical challenges involved in each.

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“…Environmentalists, on the other hand, are waging their own war on blockchain. Several recent reports have already demonstrated the environmental damage caused by blockchain mining. Some have claimed that blockchain is to the cause of 50% of the power consumption in some cities, while others are associating blockchain with excessive carbon emissions and ecological damage .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several recent reports have already demonstrated the environmental damage caused by blockchain mining. Some have claimed that blockchain is to the cause of 50% of the power consumption in some cities, while others are associating blockchain with excessive carbon emissions and ecological damage . Bitcoin, one cryptocurrency which is just one application of blockchain, has been reported to have consumed in 2019 electrical power equivalent to that consumed by Austria with a 22% increase between 2018 and 2019.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Blockchain: Trends and future opportunities

Zeadally

Abdo

2019

Internet Technology Letters

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Blockchain has been receiving considerable attention from the research community lately. Several research efforts have proposed the use of blockchain in many application domains. Not all of these application areas have received the same level of blockchain attention however and, for some of the applications, blockchain investigation has even stopped. Blockchain has the ability to shape the future, but not in all applications and topics. We explored those application areas that have not received much blockchain attention so that we can focus more on the application domains that have strong potential to reach the customer and have a high impact on the market. Based on our quantitative evaluation of blockchain applications and topics, we recommend those that need further investigation and implementation.

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Blockchain technology in the energy sector: A systematic review of challenges and opportunities

Cited by 1,797 publications

References 38 publications

Implementing Blockchain Technology in Irrigation Systems That Integrate Photovoltaic Energy Generation Systems

Implementing Blockchain Technology in Irrigation Systems That Integrate Photovoltaic Energy Generation Systems

Consider ethical and social challenges in smart grid research

Blockchain: Trends and future opportunities

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