Towards Efficient Privacy and Trust in Decentralized Blockchain-Based Peer-to-Peer Renewable Energy Marketplace

Renewable energy sources are becoming increasingly important as a substitute for fossil energy production. However, distributed renewable energy production faces several challenges regarding trading and management, such as inflexible pricing models and inaccurate green consumption information. A decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) electricity marketplace may address these challenges. It enables prosumers to market their self-produced electricity. However, such a marketplace needs to guarantee that the transactions follow market rules and government regulations, cannot be manipulated, and are consistent with the generated electricity. One of the ways to provide these guarantees is to leverage blockchain technology. This work describes a decentralized blockchain-based P2P energy marketplace addressing privacy, trust, and governance issues. It uses a private permissioned blockchain Hyperledger Fabric (HF) and its smart contracts to perform energy trading settlements. The suggested P2P marketplace includes a particular regulator actor acting as a governmental representative overseeing marketplace operations. In this way, the suggested P2P marketplace can address the governance issues needed in electricity marketplaces. Further, the proposed marketplace ensures actors’ data privacy by employing HF’s private data collections while preserving the integrity and auditability of all operations. We present an in-depth performance evaluation and provide insights into the security and privacy challenges emerging from such a marketplace. The results demonstrate that partial centralization by the applied regulator does not limit the P2P energy trade settlement execution. Blockchain technology allows for automated marketplace operations enabling better incentives for prosumer electricity production. Finally, the suggested marketplace preserves the user’s privacy when P2P energy trade settlements are conducted