Utilization of a blockchainized reputation management service for performance enhancement of Smart Grid 2.0 applications

Blockchain has become the technology enabler in delivering modern Smart Grid 2.0 functionalities. Many services including Peer-to-Peer energy trading, distribution network management, financial settlements, and energy data management are catered through blockchain-enabled platforms. However, areas such as service quality-based pricing strategies, supply–demand balancing in distribution system to attain enhanced reliability and consumption-oriented rewarding mechanisms need improving in order to achieve the full benefits of the envisaged grid architecture. In response, this study proposes a novel Blockchain-as-a-Service for Energy Trading (BaaSET) platform, which offers reputation-based services, executed through smart contracts for smart grid applications. Reputation-based grid operations are automatically executed through smart contracts deployed onto a blockchain. The reputation is estimated using power quality and reliability indices, obtained through grid measurements. Further, tests have been conducted to evaluate the associated latency and the implementation cost of the proposed blockchainized service architecture. Test results signify the performance to be comparatively better considering the state-of-the-art. The results further suggest alternatives to improve the scalability of the architecture, to cater the increasing number of stakeholders in the SG 2.0 environment.