Blockchain drives the transformation and upgrading of power grid

At present, blockchain has become the focus of social attention, and enterprises in various industries are exploring the development and application of blockchain. In the power industry, blockchain has landed projects in State Grid Corporation of China and China Southern Power Grid Corporation, mainly used in three scenarios: transaction, evidence storage and authorization management. According to the ideas of power grid experts, the future development direction of blockchain in the power grid industry mainly includes four aspects: power trading, industrial financial services, emerging businesses, and interconnection between upstream and downstream enterprises in the industry.

Cannot be tampered with to improve transaction fairness and efficiency

"Blockchain helps power grid companies adapt to the situation of power reform and meet the huge demand for transaction data." Cai Hua, director of the Investment and Finance Research Institute of the Southern Power Grid Energy Development Research Institute, said that in the future, the power grid will evolve from the existing centralized public utility model to the direction of integrating more decentralized resources, having a real-time quotation system, and more closely matching demand and supply. This process will generate tens of millions of decentralized nodes, which can not only send and receive data, but also perform P2P transactions. "Without a third-party platform, transaction data is permanently stored in the blockchain system, and it has the characteristics of being irrevocable once it is reached. This can reduce transaction links, reduce transaction costs, improve efficiency, and promote transaction development." Cai Hua said.

Caihua believes that blockchain can also help promote industrial innovation and development and achieve enterprise transformation and upgrading. At present, power grid companies are in a period of transformation and development. State Grid proposed "three types and two networks", and Southern Grid proposed "three business transformations", both indicating that the development of power grids will not only be limited to power transmission and distribution business, but also connect to the upstream and downstream of the industrial value chain. Blockchain will help power grid companies break through internal and external data information barriers and build an energy industry ecology of mutual trust, mutual benefit and sharing.

Cao Yin, founding partner of the Energy Blockchain Lab and executive deputy director of the Institute of Advanced Blockchain at Tsinghua University's Yangtze River Delta Research Institute, said that data on the blockchain is uploaded to the chain at a single point, can be checked at multiple points, and cannot be tampered with, which breaks the original information opacity between different stakeholders and different levels.

"The immutability and traceability of blockchain transaction records provide a powerful means of supervision for energy regulatory authorities and improve the level of market supervision." Yan Yong, chief blockchain scientist at the State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power Research Institute, said bluntly. Cai Hua also believes that the traceability and difficulty of tampering of blockchain make it have great potential in improving the information security of energy enterprises, information transparency, and reducing investment and financing costs. It is more suitable for electronic contracts, energy investment and financing, supply chain traceability and other businesses. For example, the State Grid E-Commerce Company has built a judicial-level trusted blockchain public service platform, participated in the formulation of the first national blockchain standard, and realized the application of blockchain in electronic invoices, electricity points exchange, bill payment and other businesses.

Decentralization helps power grid companies improve quality and efficiency

Many experts believe that blockchain can help power grid companies improve quality and efficiency, enhance management capabilities and customer service levels, mainly in terms of optimizing business processes, improving work efficiency, meeting upgraded customer needs, promoting data sharing, leveraging data value, solving demand-side response problems, improving collaborative efficiency, and ensuring the authenticity of customer information.

Among them, a typical example is the blockchain electronic invoice issued by China Southern Power Grid Electric Vehicle Company. On January 31, 2019, the company issued the country's first blockchain electronic invoice for charging electricity fees; as of the end of October, more than 5,000 electronic invoices have been issued. Blockchain electronic invoices break through the previous limitations of only the information of both parties to the transaction, synchronize with the tax authorities in real time, effectively avoid the problem of fake invoices, reduce costs, and ensure data security.

In Cao Yin's view, there are many trust issues in the existing business model. For example, in the settlement of distributed photovoltaic power generation, a 40-kilowatt rooftop photovoltaic power station requires a lot of trust endorsements, third-party audits, and transaction certifications, and the cost is very high. Blockchain has changed the way trust is generated and solved an old problem - building trust between strangers and achieving decentralization.

"In applications such as green certificates and subsidies, blockchain can share energy metering data, reduce the review process, improve efficiency, and reduce the amount of information to be submitted. For example, in Haining, Jiaxing, Zhejiang, local photovoltaic subsidies must be notified by the government, and the power grid company will print and stamp the data and provide it to the government. At the same time, customers are required to provide invoices, power grid company stamped certificates and other relevant supporting materials. The government will only issue subsidies after verifying that the materials are correct." Yan Yong introduced that the application of blockchain can solve the problem of requiring a large amount of offline work in the current subsidy process, so that customers can apply for subsidies "without having to run once", improve review efficiency, and reduce the workload of the government and power grid companies.

In-depth research to create a model for application in the power industry

As blockchain research and application rises to the national level, various fields are accelerating their layout and practice. For the power grid industry, it is necessary to combine business pain points, conduct in-depth research on the application of blockchain in the power field, analyze its impact on traditional power grid business, and comprehensively evaluate the application value of different scenarios to promote the implementation of high-quality application businesses.

"Overall, the current application of blockchain in the power industry is in the stage of technical research and pilot application. We must strengthen the reserve of technical forces, accelerate the training of blockchain experts, and open up the innovation chain, application chain, and value chain." Cai Hua suggested that we should select key areas for pilot projects, and take the lead in conducting demonstrations in areas such as power trading and contract management in the near future. At the same time, we should explore research on blockchain-based power trading platforms, enterprise-level blockchain application service platforms, and create demonstration samples for the application of blockchain in the energy and power fields.

In Caihua's view, power grid companies can join forces with other central enterprises and upstream and downstream enterprises at home and abroad, universities, research institutes, etc. to establish an innovation community to lead technological breakthroughs; actively promote the formulation of application standards and specifications for blockchain in the energy and power fields, and lead the development and application of blockchain with standard construction.