Implementation of blockchain-based energy trading system

• Main Authors: Se-Chang Oh, Min-Soo Kim, Yoon Park, Gyu-Tak Roh, Chin-Woo Lee
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Emerald Publishing 2017-12-01
• Series: Asia Pacific Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
• Subjects: Decentralization; Blockchain; Security; Power trading; Smart contract; Exchange transaction
• Online Access: https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1108/APJIE-12-2017-037

Purpose - The centralized processes of today’s power trading systems are complex and pose a risk of price tampering and hacking. The decentralized and unmodifiable nature of the blockchain technology that has recently been highlighted offers the potential to improve this power trading process. The purpose of this study is to implement a system to apply the blockchain technology to the problem of power trading. Design/methodology/approach - The authors modeled the power trading problem as the interaction between admin, producer and consumer nodes. And a power trading scenario has been created for this model using a blockchain platform called Multichain which is both fast and highly scalable. To verify this scenario, they implemented a trading system using Savoir, a Python-based JsonRPC module. Findings - Experimental results show that all processes, such as blockchain creation, node connectivity, asset issuance and exchange transactions have been correctly handled according to the scenario. Originality/value - In this study, the authors have proposed and implemented a power trading method that determines price according to the pure market principle and cannot be manipulated or hacked. It is based on the nature of blockchain technology that is decentralized and cannot be tampered.