Amrit Paudel

Peer-to-peer energy trading in an active distribution network can contribute to benefit sharing among multiple prosumers and efficient accommodation of distributed renewable energy. Nevertheless, the distribution voltage constraints should be satisfied such that the energy transactions can be securely implemented in the physical system. To this end, this paper develops a fully decentralized dual-loop peer-to-peer energy trading mechanism with voltage regulation capability. In the inner-loop process, the self-interested energy prosumers iteratively achieve optimal energy trading via multi-bilateral negotiation without considering network constraints. Then, the prosumers coordinatedly optimize their reactive power in a decentralized way endeavoring to satisfy the voltage constraints. If no physically feasible solution is detected, an outer-loop iterative process is activated, where the over-/under-voltage prosumers autonomously adjust their trading quantities to clear the voltage problem. Various case studies are performed in the standard IEEE 33-bus and IEEE 69-bus test feeders involving multiple energy prosumers to validate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed scheme.

Control systems are significant to the microgrid as they regulate performance parameters such as frequency, active power, and voltage. Distributed control systems allow direct communication between the secondary controllers and controls the parameters efficiently. To secure each distributed control process and ensure a good quality of control results, a proof-of-authority private blockchain is applied in this article to defend the distributed control system against various types of cyber-attacks such as false data injection. A four-distributed generation islanded microgrid is tested with the implementation of the blockchain. Smart contracts are created to calculate the control feedback and return the value to corresponding secondary controllers. All of the four nodes are initially assigned as the authority nodes to share the mining burden, but according to the proof-of-authority consensus protocol, the authority role could be excluded if the node behaves illegally and causes damage to the control system. In addition, different attacking scenarios are categorized and analyzed with their respective solutions. Finally, a case study is introduced to verify the corresponding solutions and proves that the proposed method is able to secure the distributed control system while ensuring the control quality. Numerical results show the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed approach.

This paper presents a scalable mechanism for peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading among prosumers in a smart grid. In the proposed mechanism, prosumers engage in a non-mediated negotiation with their peers to reach an agreement on the price and quantity of energy to be exchanged. Instead of concurrent bilateral negotiation between all peers with high overheads, an iterative peer matching process is employed to match peers for bilateral negotiation. The proposed negotiation algorithm enables prosumers to come to an agreement, given that they have no prior knowledge about the preference structure of their trading partners. A greediness factor is introduced to model the selfish behavior of prosumers in the negotiation process and to investigate its impact on the negotiation outcome. In order to recover the costs related to power losses, a transaction fee is applied to each transaction that enables the grid operator to recover incurred losses due to P2P trades. The case studies demonstrate that the proposed mechanism discourages greedy behavior of prosumers in the negotiation process as it does not increase their economic surplus. Also, it has an appropriate performance from the computation overheads and scalability perspectives.

Distributed generation in the microgrid becomes increasingly significant, as it eliminates the power losses from long-distance electricity transmission lines. Distributed energy resources (DERs) owners who can both produce and consume energy are defined as prosumers. To encourage the peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading between prosumers, blockchain as a thriving technology is utilized in the P2P network due to its transparency, security, and rapidity in executing transactions. Due to its decentralized quality, any intermediaries are eliminated so that transactions happen directly among traders. This paper introduces a consortium blockchain trading model to support P2P energy trading, using a proof-of-stake protocol. The pre-selected miners are responsible for compensating the power losses in distribution lines by energy transactions. The specific process of the blockchain establishment, as well as the smart contract creation, are demonstrated. In addition, a type of crypto-currency named ‘elecoin’ is created in the P2P market, which is published by the mining mechanism of the blockchain. Finally, a case study is introduced to realise the functions of the proposed blockchain model. Simulation results show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading is one of the promising approaches for implementing decentralized electricity market paradigms. In the P2P trading, each actor negotiates directly with a set of trading partners. Since the physical network or grid is used for energy transfer, power losses are inevitable, and grid-related costs always occur during the P2P trading. A proper market clearing mechanism is required for the P2P energy trading between different producers and consumers. This paper proposes a decentralized market clearing mechanism for the P2P energy trading considering the privacy of the agents, power losses as well as the utilization fees for using the third party owned network. Grid-related costs in the P2P energy trading are considered by calculating the network utilization fees using an electrical distance approach. The simulation results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed decentralized approach for market clearing in P2P energy trading.

A local energy trading in microgrids is one of the emerging concepts in the area of distribution networks. A proper business model is required to manage local energy trading. The pricing mechanism is crucial because the agreed energy price determines the benefits of local energy trading. Designing a proper pricing mechanism with a specific objective considering the privacy of agents and respecting physical network constraints is a challenging task. This paper proposes a decentralized algorithm for local energy trading in microgrids with an integrated pricing mechanism considering welfare maximization and network voltage management through local information exchange among neighbors. The proposed algorithm guarantees that the energy transactions do not violate voltage constraints in a physical network and agents' privacy is preserved. A two-stage approach is proposed to achieve fast convergence and increase the practicability of the algorithm. The simulation results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

This paper proposes a novel game-theoretic model for peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading among the prosumers in a community. The buyers can adjust the energy consumption behavior based on the price and quantity of the energy offered by the sellers. There exist two separate competitions during the trading process: (i) price competition among the sellers and (ii) seller selection competition among the buyers. The price competition among the sellers is modeled as a non-cooperative game. The evolutionary game theory is used to model the dynamics of the buyers for selecting sellers. Moreover, an M-leader and N-follower Stackelberg game approach is used to model the interaction between buyers and sellers. Two iterative algorithms are proposed for the implementation of the games such that an equilibrium state exists in each of the games. The proposed method is applied to a small community microgrid with photovoltaic (PV) and energy storage systems. Simulation results show the convergence of the algorithms and the effectiveness of the proposed model to handle the P2P energy trading. The results also show that P2P energy trading provides significant financial and technical benefits to the community and it is emerging as an alternative of cost-intensive energy storage systems.