Energy Commitment in Prosumer-Centric P2P Energy Trading via Blockchain Technology

In a smart grid era, blockchain technology is one of the most feasible mechanisms to encourage prosumers to participate in peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading in local distributed energy markets. However, the fair evaluation and the prosumer’s enthusiasm to participate in energy trading are the major challenges in P2P energy trading. Therefore, enhancing the reliability of P2P energy trading is a vital issue for local distributed energy markets. In this study, a novel peer matching mechanism is developed, which is based on blockchain technology and covers ‘one-to-one’ and ‘one-to-many’ matching among prosumers during the local energy trading market. Firstly, individual prosumers’ data is shared by accessing the web portal with their individual login credentials to the blockchain trading platform. Secondly, peer matching is performed based on the reliability score of individual participants, which is computed from the prosumer’s energy commitment. Finally, based on mid-market rate mechanisms, P2P energy trading is included in the blockchain framework. This use case study demonstrates that the proposed mechanism encourages prosumers to participate fearlessly and scope for improving their energy commitment in the peer matching process as it does not include any monetary fines or incentives to the prosumers. Also, it has an exceptionally good computational performance and scalability to inspire energy trading at the local distribution level.