Distributed Energy Trading via Blockchain and IoT Matching
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Solution Overview
Problem
In a smart energy grid, existing systems face challenges in efficiently managing and trading energy due to the complexity of energy consumption and production patterns, varying energy prices, and the need for optimized trading strategies across multiple time slots and intervals, which current optimization algorithms and smart meters do not adequately address.
Innovation Solution
A distributed energy trading system that utilizes IoT devices for data collection, weather APIs for predictive modeling, and a blockchain-based marketplace to facilitate peer-to-peer trading, enabling efficient matching of energy bids and offers, and secure tokenized transactions between user wallets.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If distributed trading agents use optimization algorithms to trade energy on behalf of customers, then trading efficiency is improved, but system complexity increases due to multiple time slots, intervals, and pricing mechanisms
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a centralized matching engine as an intermediary that coordinates all trading agents. This matching engine receives bids and offers from multiple distributed trading agents, performs centralized matching across different time slots and pricing mechanisms, and generates matched trades. This intermediary approach maintains trading efficiency through optimized matching algorithms while reducing system complexity by centralizing the complex matching logic rather than requiring each agent to handle all complexity independently.
2Productivity
If smart meters communicate price and demand information to enable trading, then energy distribution optimization is improved, but data security and transaction reliability deteriorate without blockchain validation
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces traditional centralized database or trusted intermediary systems with a blockchain-based distributed ledger. Smart meters and trading agents interact with the blockchain network to record transactions, store pricing information, and validate trades immutably. This substitution provides cryptographic security and decentralized validation, ensuring transaction reliability without requiring a single point of trust while maintaining the ability to optimize energy distribution through transparent, verifiable data sharing.
3Use of energy by moving object
If multiple smart appliances consume energy differently based on availability and price, then energy utilization efficiency is improved, but measurement and tracking complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal messaging infrastructure using MQTT protocols that enables all smart appliances and trading agents to communicate through a standardized interface. This universal messaging system handles diverse energy consumption patterns, pricing signals, and trading operations through a single unified communication framework. The system uses standardized message formats and topics that can accommodate different appliance types and trading strategies without requiring separate communication channels, thereby reducing measurement and tracking complexity while maintaining the ability to optimize energy utilization across diverse devices.
Data Source
AI summary
Distributed energy trading settlement is provided. The method comprises polling a number of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices for energy consumption and production data for a specified preceding time interval and receiving weather data from a weather application programming interface (API) for the same time interval. A number of bids and offers are received from a central modelling solution within a specified trading window, based on the data from the IoT devices and weather API. Orders are then created from the bids and offers. At least a subset of the orders are matched to create a number of matched trades, which are published to a message queue. The published matched trades are committed as transactions in a blockchain, and tokens are transferred between user wallets according to the transactions in the blockchain.