| dc.description.abstract | Blockchains have been embraced by many industries where transactions, either financial
or non-financial, are involved. Furthermore, blockchains have been proven to
support transactions, without the need for a third-party or other middlemen. Given
the distributed properties of blockchains, they are very suitable as the underlying
foundation of peer-to-peer applications. Among the peer-to-peer applications that
could be improved with the support of blockchains, is the microgrid. Microgrids
are finite energy systems where peers may purchase energy among themselves.
This thesis investigates the blockchains ability to work as the underlying technology
to support settlement in a microgrid. The blockchain is essentially a distributed,
immutable ledger. However, there exists many versions of this ledger based on implementation
features such as governance and consensus etc. A thorough background
study of blockchains, and the differences in the blockchain features are presented.
Furthermore, existing systems using blockchains for settlement in peer-to-peer
energy systems are presented. Based on the findings in the background study and
related work, a new blockchain as the technology for supporting these transactions
is proposed and implemented. Results from the tests show that the proof-of-concept
blockchain developed in this thesis works well as the underlying technology for
settling energy flow in a microgrid. However, further development and testing is
required for a real system. | |
