Blockchain-based peer-to-peer renewable energy trading and traceability of transmission and distribution losses

In attempts to progress the transition towards decarbonizing energy systems and achieving sustainable development goals linked to energy, renewable energy sources (RES), which are decentrally deployed, are being widely promoted. However, RES are constrained by many barriers, some of which are technical in nature, such as energy losses. For instance, traditional peer-to-peer (P2P) trading systems have been used as a mechanism to advance RES because they offer a promising solution for decentralized energy trading without third-party intermediaries. However, it faces significant challenges, notably in accounting for energy losses during transmission and distribution, thus reducing overall system efficiency. We propose an end-to-end blockchain-based solution to provide traceability of energy loss in a distributed network and enhance transaction security, trust, and operational efficiency by linking prosumers and consumers. Our solution uses smart contracts to automate business transactions among the stakeholders. We develop six algorithms and deploy the smart contracts to demonstrate the successful deployment of the P2P energy trading process. Our solution effectively provides traceability of energy loss and reliably secured P2P energy transaction verification. We also present the cost and security analysis to demonstrate the affordability and reliability of our solution. We make our smart contract codes publicly available on GitHub.