Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

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Materials Today: Proceedings

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Energy management with blockchain technology in DC microgrids

G. Sreeramulu Mahesh a,⇑, G. Dilli babu a, V.G.T. Rakesh a, S.B. Mohan a, P.S. Ranjit b
a
Sri Venkateswara Engineering College, Tirupati, India
b
Aditya Engineering College (A), Surampalem, A.P, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The energy management is one of the key parameter in the Demand Side Management and is convinced
Available online xxxx application in an Industry 4.0 platform. To control the peak load demands and to improve the Demand
Side Management objectives like power sharing technologies, electricity tariff, scheduling, incentives
Keywords: and policies, the Blockchain Technologies are to be enabled. In addition, the Blockchain Technology also
DC microgrid helps to enable the decentralization in terms of energy consumption to various consumers, power esti-
Bi-directional converters mation requirements and provides greater security in trading the electrical energy. In this paper, the con-
Islanded mode
cept of Blockchain Technology for the DC microgrid is defined, also, the power sharing between the
Energy storage elements
Blockchain technology
energy storage elements and the electrical loads through Bi-Directional converters with Fuzzy Logic
Demand side management Controller are proposed. The proposed system is simulated with MATLAB Simulink software and various
waveforms are shown.
Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Confer-
ence on Materials and System Engineering.

1. Introduction countries. These certificates are unique and credited to the produc-
ers, consumers, prosumers, public etc., with proper authentication
A new framework is very much necessary to understand and by the government bodies. To create such authenticated unique
analyze the applications of Industry 4.0 [I4.0]. The I4.0 comprises certifications, an autonomous Block chain Technology (BT) will
on the nine digital industrial technologies like Robotics, Augment ease the process of identifying them. Also, each geographical loca-
reality, Additive manufacturing and Simulation, Horizontal or Ver- tion has their own energy generation and thus it is necessary to
tical integration, Industrial Internet, Cloud computing, Cyber secu- develop the white certificates based on type and availability of
rity and Big data analytics. However, due to prematurity, the I4.0 energy generations. Many researchers have expressed the signifi-
didn’t mention any standard technologies and policies for the cance of BT with respect to energy sector, optimization of energy
development of the application. According to the World Economic sources, Peer-2-Peer electrical energy trading and negotiation of
Forum 2019, the Globalization 4.0 has shaped with standards of electrical energy pricing with Multi agent systems [3–4].
governance and technological developments. With the combina- The BT provides a concept of decentralization network or nodes,
tion of I4.0 and Globalization 4.0, the economy of any country is will help in trading the energy on the network is shown in the
so called as ‘‘Innovation Driven Economy” [1–2]. Fig. 1. In decentralization network, the utility has information of
To achieve the I4.0 in the energy sector, where the utilities, con- the net power consumption of the consumers and has an option
sumers and stakeholders should come together for a reliable power to schedule loads from the received price signal. The information
system network with the integration of renewables and with on this network is operated with a special feature of distributed
greater security. In addition, the trading of electrical energy is at storage of energy and peer-to-peer protocol for transactions with
most important for the economic growth and social equity. The all the consumers. The BT has many advantages like minimizing
policy makers, utility and stakeholders should promote the credit the power theft, transparency on tariff (Dynamic pricing) improves
based certificates which is similar to the ‘‘White certificates” or the overall efficiency of the system and more importantly security
energy saving certificates that are following in the European on the data or information. To summarize, the BT has command
over controlling and regulating the energy sector, specifically in
the case of microgrids [5–6].
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (G. Sreeramulu Mahesh).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2021.04.188
2214-7853/Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Conference on Materials and System Engineering.

Please cite this article as: G. Sreeramulu Mahesh, G. Dilli babu, V.G.T. Rakesh et al., Energy management with blockchain technology in DC microgrids,
Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2021.04.188
G. Sreeramulu Mahesh, G. Dilli babu, V.G.T. Rakesh et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

has an option to adjust the loads from peak hours to off-peak

hours, thus, the peak demands are regulated. Also, the applications
like price based demand response and incentive based demand
response components will promote the economic benefits to the
consumers [8–12].

2.2. Working model of DC microgrid

The various renewable sources enable the Storage Energy’s (SE)

to charge to maximum State-of-Charge (SoC), through BDC, under
various modes of operation and listed below. The BDC is operated
in charging and discharging the SE’s [13–17]. In the charging mode,
the SE’s are charged from the renewable sources in either grid
mode or islanded mode, and the same SE’s will discharge its energy
to critical loads only in islanded mode and is shown in the Fig. 3.

Fig. 1. Decentralization Network Model. 2.3. Modes of operation

The DC Microgrid is operated in two modes: Grid mode, where

The Bi- Directional Converters (BDC) are playing major role in the utility work with all the loads and Islanded mode, where the
Vehicle-to-Grid (V-2-G), Grid-to-Vehicle (G-2-V) and Vehicle-to- DGs coordinates with the loads. However, based on the various
Home(V-2-H) applications and considered as efficient and flexible. conditions and constraints, the modes of operation are defined as
The BDC approach with energy storage elements will regulate the follows.
electrical loads based on the demand are simulated and the simu-
lated results of charging and discharging the SEs are shown. The 2.4. Grid mode
paper is organized as follows: section II deals with the structure
of BT, in section III describes the energy management using BT Case I:
on microgrids and in section IV, a case study on the charging the This case gives over all flexibility to the consumer, since all the
SEs and discharging the SEs through BDC based on the demand– renewables are working in MPPT mode and with grid contribution
supply of the energy are discussed. to supply the SEs charges from the renewables through BDC.
Case II:
In this case, some of the renewables in voltage regulation mode,
2. Structure of blockchain technology however, the grid meets the energy demand. The SEs have an
option to charge either from the grid or from renewables through
Blockchain is digital ledger or database that contains the infor- BDC.
mation of transactions between two register members in highly Case III:
secured network. To perform any transactions, both the members Here, all the renewables are OFF and the grid will supply the
should authenticate along with the other members in the network, energy to the loads. However, the SEs will charge from the grid.
thus the network is said to be a trusted distributed network and
the information can be accessed by all the registered members of 2.5. Islanded mode
the network, thus it works on the peer-to-peer network protocol.
The trusted distributed network is shown in the figure, this net- Case I:
work is said to be safe and secured as compared with centralized At this situation, the renewables at MPPT mode will supply the
and decentralized networks. The trusted members are either energy to all the loads that are defined. The SEs discharges through
energy suppliers, energy buyers or any service providers, in addi- BDC has an option to contribute to the loads.
tion this system also contains the historical information of all the Case II:
members with data storage clouds, the schematic of the system In this case, the SEs discharge through BDC continuously, how-
is shown in Fig. 2, [7] ever, some of the loads are curtailed and the renewables are oper-
Components of the Blockchain: ating at voltage regulation mode.
Case III:
 Hash key (present and previous blocks) The SEs will discharge the energy through BDC to the DC bus
 Public key with all the renewables are OFF and considering only the critical
 Private key loads.
 Digital signature
 Time Stamp 2.6. Fuzzy control system for the microgrid

2.1. DC microgrid with BT In order to achieve the Demand Side Management (DSM) objec-
tives efficiently, many Fuzzy Logic Controls (FLC) are required to
Basically, DC microgrid includes Distributed Generations (DG), control the microgrid. The various FLC control strategies are used
inverter units, loads, protection systems and control units. The for microgrid at different locations are listed below.
DC microgrid operates in two different modes, Grid mode and
Islanded mode with proper protection units. To fulfill the  Controlling the PVs (Maximum Power Point Tracking)
demand–supply of energy, the DC microgrids with different buyers  Control of Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator wind
or sellers are grouped with Blockchain in a decentralized network. turbine
With this system, the consumer have freedom to choose the ser-  Charging and discharging the SEs
vice provider and when the energy prices are high, the consumers
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G. Sreeramulu Mahesh, G. Dilli babu, V.G.T. Rakesh et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 2. DC Microgrid with Blockchain and Aggregator.

Fig. 3. Working model of DC Microgrid.

 Control options to the aggregator (modifying or updating the However, during high demand, the SEs would discharge the energy
existing tariff structure) through the same BDC.

3. Case study on charging and discharging the SEs in microgrids 4. Fuzzy logic control strategy

The BDC circuit is the combination of rectifier and a DC-DC con- The membership functions of FLC decides the charging and dis-
verter with high frequency transformer of turns ratio N:1 is used charging modes of SEs. The following Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 defines the
for the charging the SEs when excess supply of energy is available. triangular member functions for the BDC.
3
G. Sreeramulu Mahesh, G. Dilli babu, V.G.T. Rakesh et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 4. Error Function in Fuzzy.

Fig. 5. Error Function in Fuzzy.

5. Simulation results 6. Results and discussion

The battery or SEs are charged to a SoC of 80% and is shown in From the results, it is clearly understood that the DC microgrid
the Fig. 6 during charging mode and in the discharging mode the operates in grid mode and islanded mode, the DC microgrid meets
SEs are discharged and the load current and voltage are shown in the energy demand through the Energy Storage Sources in MPPT
the Fig. 7. and regulation mode, the BDC is able to manage the energy in both

Fig 6. SoC of the battery (Charging Mode).

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G. Sreeramulu Mahesh, G. Dilli babu, V.G.T. Rakesh et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 7. Load Current and Voltage (Discharging Mode).

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The authors declare that they have no known competing finan- Series 1473 (2020).
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cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared Designing microgrid energy markets: A case study: The Brooklyn microgrid,
to influence the work reported in this paper. Appl. Energy 210 (2018) 870–880.
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