Blockchain technology makes decentralized renewable electricity supply possible

China Energy Storage Network News: In 2018, blockchain projects in the global energy sector ushered in a wave of explosive growth.

The blockchain power project Eloncity breaks away from the common landing scenario chosen by early blockchain projects entering the power industry - the peer-to-peer power trading platform model.

Eloncity aims to build community basic power facilities by "adopting distributed new energy community power supply + energy storage equipment" and gradually complete the grid connection of micro-community smart grids, thereby establishing a decentralized community power trading market. In this process, it can solve industry pain points, achieve power supply and demand balance, and accelerate the development of renewable energy.

The general trend: distributed energy

"The global competition in the new century is the competition for energy and resources." This saying that has been circulating for decades is not a joke, nor is it alarmist.

In the context of global economic integration, the impact of energy price fluctuations on the international situation and the spread of a single economic crisis cannot be ignored. Establishing a distributed (fragmented) renewable energy supply system is one of the ways for countries around the world to get rid of their over-reliance on scarce energy.

Although in major developed countries around the world, electricity consumers can freely choose electricity producers and distributors with higher cost-effectiveness in the electricity market. However, due to the centralized power supply model adopted by the traditional power system, the small number of participants in the power market and the large number of oligopolies, it is difficult to unify the technical standards related to power transmission and transformation. In addition, the local government's method of promoting renewable energy lacks sustainable considerations, and interest groups therefore fight over the way to set rates, resulting in an endless number of intermediate links in electricity pricing, chaotic billing rules, and rising network costs.

In addition, in the traditional retail power network supply, power supply and demand management are centralized and predicted. Obviously, power supply and demand have real-time dynamic differences according to time period, season, weather and cultural background. However, most power supply systems can only predict power distribution problems several months in advance and adopt crude price differences, which makes it impossible for people to use power intelligently and exacerbates the peak-valley effect.

The centralized generation, distribution and sales model of electricity; the rough supply and demand management; the ever-changing pricing methods; and the inability to accurately match the supply and demand of power generation in real time have resulted in a huge global waste of resources and electricity.

In this regard, achieving decentralized renewable energy supply and deploying distributed renewable energy has become a general trend for countries to deepen energy competition.

This trend provides a feasible basis and broad support for the application of blockchain technology in the energy field. In the traditional power industry, many professionals and stakeholders have begun to think about how to implement a modern transformation of the centralized and monopolistic power grid and introduce new power business models.

Nowadays, energy blockchain projects that conduct technological exploration in the field of distributed energy and have a layout of practical hardware projects are not only sought after by venture capital and individual digital currency investors, but also gain support from multinational industry giants.

Rapid application of blockchain in different scenarios: peer-to-peer transactions

The application scenarios of blockchain technology in the current electric energy field are reflected in the peer-to-peer transaction link. Peer-to-peer transactions can greatly enhance the purchasing autonomy of electricity consumers, reflect the actual price of electricity, help electricity consumers use electricity rationally, and reduce the complexity of network traffic.

This was also the common landing scenario chosen by early blockchain projects entering the power industry in 2017. Projects such as Drift Energy Blockchain, Power Ledger, Conjoule, and Grid+ have all taken the first step into the power sector by building peer-to-peer blockchain power trading platforms.

At present, the electricity trading platform built with blockchain technology can remove the middleman in the electricity trading process. Electricity consumers can freely switch to a cleaner energy supplier or an electricity supplier with a more advantageous electricity price at any time. Individuals and enterprises can directly trade electricity safely and quickly on similar platforms.

Blockchain technology can lead a whole set of distributed energy trading and supply systems. It can directly connect energy producers and consumers, significantly reduce the transaction cost of electricity, and improve transaction efficiency. This allows power producers, transmission network operators, distribution network operators, and energy retail service providers to trade at multiple levels, simplifying the complex multi-level structure of the existing power system.

Blockchain technology can also play its tamper-proof characteristics in identifying carbon power and authenticating renewable energy electricity. It can directly record renewable electricity and provide the convenience of trusted transactions for renewable energy.

In a sense, using blockchain technology to establish an electricity trading platform is a technological upgrade of the existing electricity trading market. This upgrade can solve some of the problems of the existing traditional centralization of the global electricity sector - trading behavior is more flat.

However, in the current power system, there are huge and complex calculations of transmission and distribution network resource costs. In addition, to achieve data sharing and dynamic balance of the power system, information collection requires finer granularity and higher sampling rate. There are high requirements for data volume and computing speed. Obviously, the current computing power and transaction rate of blockchain technology are difficult to support.

In-depth application of blockchain technology, intelligent use of energy and energy storage systems

To achieve decentralized renewable energy power supply and avoid huge energy waste caused by inefficient management, more than just a virtual decentralized electricity trading platform is needed.

Whether it is possible to establish a "sustainable community renewable energy supply and demand balance system" is one of the rules for considering whether a blockchain project can obtain a valuable and potential development foundation in the energy field.

If we want to solve the core problem of the power sector - decentralized production, achieve truly intelligent power supply and demand distribution, and eliminate the unplanned waste of power and resources, and move towards the acquisition of distributed renewable energy, blockchain technology also needs to be deeply deployed and applied in the specific use scenarios of power.

In order to ensure the stable operation of global power facilities, centralized power generation hubs and power transmission and transformation systems are crucial. So far, countries around the world have actively invested in smart grids, hoping to effectively isolate the production and use of electricity in time, use community micro-smart grids as basic supply units, and gradually realize the idea of ​​"community surrounding the city", subverting the "instantaneous balance principle of supply and demand" commonly used in the current power system, and realizing flexible and interactive power use, bringing revolutionary changes to the operation of traditional power systems.

Smart grid is an organic whole including power generation, transmission, transformation, distribution, consumption, dispatching and other links and voltage levels. It is a complete intelligent power system. To achieve flexible and interactive power consumption in smart grid, intelligent use of multiple energy sources is an important prerequisite. To use multiple energy sources intelligently, we need to rely on modern energy storage technology.

Energy storage technology can effectively isolate the production and use of electric energy in time, transforming the planning, design, layout, operation management and use of the power grid from being mainly based on power transmission to being mainly based on energy transmission, breaking the execution principle of instantaneous balance of supply and demand in the power system.

Simply put, energy storage can effectively manage the demand side of power supply and play a role in peak load shaving, thereby improving the overall operating efficiency of the power grid and reducing power supply costs. In the event of sudden natural disasters and large-scale power outages caused by human factors, energy storage equipment can serve as an emergency power source. In addition, energy storage technology has a lot of room for application in regulating the power output provided by various power generation energy sources and improving the utilization value of renewable energy.

In the future, distributed hybrid power supply systems will become the global mainstream. With the continuous development of new energy technologies, in distributed hybrid power supply systems, renewable energy sources such as solar energy and small wind energy will provide energy to community users in a distributed manner. Millions of community micro-smart grids will also become an important component of distributed hybrid power supply systems.