A Consortium Blockchain-Based Approach for Energy Sharing in Distribution Systems

Power network disruptions triggered by weather events, malfunction, sabotage, or other phenomena can leave harrowing effects on communities. Microgrids with distributed energy resources have the potential to enable swift localized restoration following the interruption of utility power. However, because of the limited generation and storage capacity of microgrids, service restoration will require prioritizing critical load and optimality of operations to render relief to those in dire need. Moreover, this essentially requires fair energy allocation, trust-free energy exchanges, and the integrity of transactions. This paper proposes a consortium blockchain-based energy sharing approach for service restoration using energy crowdsourced through donation or trade. The proposed approach provides a framework that utilizes microgrids' supply situation and reputation as consortium admission criteria for optimizing the energy cost of blockchain operations. The proposed approach uses a measure called proof of welfare (PoWel), which solves the rationing problem to produce an energy allocation block. Accordingly, it proposes an algorithm by utilizing weighted rationing for prioritizing critical load restoration and an evolutionary optimization algorithm for maximizing social welfare and minimizing power losses. The winner block selected through consensus intrinsically preserves the network stability while conforming to resource and stability constraints. An extensive performance and security analysis ascertain the effectiveness of the proposed approach.