Blockchains or distributed ledgers are an emerging technology that has drawn considerable interest from energy supply firms, startups, technology developers, financial institutions, national governments and the academic community. Numerous sources coming from these backgrounds identify blockchains as having the potential to bring significant benefits and innovation. Blockchains promise transparent, tamper-proof and secure systems that can enable novel business solutions, especially when combined with smart contracts. This work provides a comprehensive overview of fundamental principles that underpin blockchain technologies, such as system architectures and distributed consensus algorithms. Next, we focus on blockchain solutions for the energy industry and inform the state-of-the-art by thoroughly reviewing the literature and current business cases. To our knowledge, this is one of the first academic, peer-reviewed works to provide a systematic review of blockchain activities and initiatives in the energy sector. Our study reviews 140 blockchain research projects and startups from which we construct a map of the potential and relevance of blockchains for energy applications. These initiatives were systematically classified into different groups according to the field of activity, implementation platform and consensus strategy used. 1 Opportunities, potential challenges and limitations for a number of use cases are discussed, ranging from emerging peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading and Internet of Things (IoT) applications, to decentralised marketplaces, electric vehicle charging and e-mobility. For each of these use cases, our contribution is twofold: first, in identifying the technical challenges that blockchain technology can solve for that application as well as its potential drawbacks, and second in briefly presenting the research and industrial projects and startups that are currently applying blockchain technology to that area. The paper ends with a discussion of challenges and market barriers the technology needs to overcome to get past the hype phase, prove its commercial viability and finally be adopted in the mainstream.

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Blockchain technology in the energy sector: A systematic review of challenges and opportunities

Microgrids energy management systems: A critical review on methods, solutions, and prospects

The advent of more proactive consumers, the so-called “prosumers”, with production and storage capabilities, is empowering the consumers and bringing new opportunities and challenges to the operation of power systems in a market environment. Recently, a novel proposal for the design and operation of electricity markets has emerged: these so-called peer-to-peer (P2P) electricity markets conceptually allow the prosumers to directly share their electrical energy and investment. Such P2P markets rely on a consumer-centric and bottom-up perspective by giving the opportunity to consumers to freely choose the way they buy their electric energy. A community can also be formed by prosumers who want to collaborate, or in terms of operational energy management. This paper contributes with an overview of these new P2P markets that starts with the motivation, challenges, market designs moving to the potential future developments in this field, providing recommendations while considering a test-case.

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Peer-to-peer and community-based markets: A comprehensive review

In the structure of ANFIS, there are two different parameter groups: premise and consequence. Training ANFIS means determination of these parameters using an optimization algorithm. In the first ANFIS model developed by Jang, a hybrid learning approach was proposed for training. In this approach, while premise parameters are determined by using gradient descent (GD), consequence parameters are found out with least squares estimation (LSE) method. Since ANFIS has been developed, it is used in modelling and identification of numerous systems and successful results have been achieved. The selection of optimization method utilized in training is very important to get effective results with ANFIS. It is seen that derivate based (GD, LSE etc.) and non-derivative based (heuristic algorithms such us GA, PSO, ABC etc.) algorithms are used in ANFIS training. Nevertheless, it has been observed that there is a trend toward heuristic based ANFIS training algorithms for better performance recently. At the same time, it seems to be proposed in derivative and heuristic based hybrid algorithms. Within the scope of this study, the heuristic and hybrid approaches utilized in ANFIS training are examined in order to guide researchers in their study. In addition, the final status in ANFIS training is evaluated and it is aimed to shed light on further studies related to ANFIS training.

Adaptive network based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) training approaches: a comprehensive survey

With the sustained deployment of distributed generation capacities and the more proactive role of consumers, power systems and their operation are drifting away from a conventional top–down hierarchical structure. Electricity market structures, however, have not yet embraced that evolution. Respecting the high-dimensional, distributed and dynamic nature of modern power systems would translate to designing peer-to-peer markets or, at least, to using such an underlying decentralized structure to enable a bottom–up approach to future electricity markets. A peer-to-peer market structure based on a multi-bilateral economic dispatch (MBED) formulation is introduced, allowing for multi-bilateral trading with product differentiation, for instance based on consumer preferences. A relaxed consensus + innovation (RCI) approach is described to solve the MBED in fully decentralized manner. A set of realistic case studies and their analysis allow us to show that such peer-to-peer market structures can effectively yield market outcomes that are different from centralized market structures and optimal in terms of respecting consumers preferences while maximizing social welfare. Additionally, the RCI solving approach allows for a fully decentralized market clearing that converges with a negligible optimality gap, with a limited amount of information being shared.

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Consensus-Based Approach to Peer-to-Peer Electricity Markets With Product Differentiation

Due to different viewpoints, procedures, limitations, and objectives, the scheduling problem of distributed energy resources (DERs) is a very important issue in power systems. This problem can be solved by considering different frameworks. Microgrids and Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) are two famous and suitable concepts by which this problem is solved within their frameworks. Each of these two solutions has its own special significance and may be employed for different purposes. Therefore, it is necessary to assess and review papers and literature in this field. In this paper, the scheduling problem of DERs is studied from various aspects such as modeling techniques, solving methods, reliability, emission, uncertainty, stability, demand response (DR), and multi-objective standpoint in the microgrid and VPP frameworks. This review enables researchers with different points of view to look for possible applications in the area of microgrid and VPP scheduling.

A comprehensive review on microgrid and virtual power plant concepts employed for distributed energy resources scheduling in power systems

Voltage stability assessment is a major issue in monitoring the power system stability. Different voltage stability indices (VSIs) have been proposed in the literature for voltage stability assessment. These indices can be used for distributed generation (DG) placement and sizing, detecting the weak lines and buses and triggering the countermeasures against voltage instability. This paper reviews the VSIs from different aspects such as concepts, assumptions, critical values and equations. The review results provide a comprehensive background to find out the future works in this field and select the best VSI for different applications like DG placement and sizing and voltage stability assessment.

A comprehensive review of the voltage stability indices

The objective of this paper is to answer to the following question: How the unified power flow controller (UPFC) parameters should be controlled in order to achieve the maximal desired effect in solving first swing stability problem. This problem appears for bulky power systems with long transmission lines. Various methods of reference identification of the series part, in order to improve the transient stability of the system based on: optimal parameters, state variables and also injection models were studied. Finally, a new identification method based on state variables and using the local measurement was proposed.

Improving of transient stability of power systems using UPFC

Increased penetration of distributed generation (DG) into the power systems has created fundamental challenges from the viewpoints of control and reliable operation of systems. Microgrids (an aggregation of DG units, loads, and storage elements) with proper control strategies can be a good solution for removing or facilitating these challenges. The introduction of inverter-based microgrid in a distribution network has facilitated the utilization of renewable energy resources, distributed generations, and storage resources; furthermore, it has improved power quality and reduced losses, thus improving the efficiency and the reliability of the system. As most DG units are connected via a power electronic interface to the grid, special control strategies have been developed for inverter interfaces of DG units in islanded microgrids. This paper presents an overview of advanced control methods for microgrids, especially the islanded and inverter-based. Moreover, various control methods are compared and categorized in terms of their respective features. It also summarizes microgrid control objectives with their most problematic solutions as well as their potential advantages and/or disadvantages. Finally, some suggestions are put forward for the future research.

Eskandar Gholipour

Papers

A comprehensive review on microgrid and virtual power plant concepts employed for distributed energy resources scheduling in power systems

A comprehensive review of the voltage stability indices

Improving of transient stability of power systems using UPFC

An overview of control approaches of inverter-based microgrids in islanding mode of operation

Stochastic profit-based scheduling of industrial virtual power plant using the best demand response strategy