Evolve from Traditional Power Grid Network to Blockchain and IoT Integrated Network

Abstract

The carbon emission goals and the disruptive technologies development of the Internet of Things and Blockchain are expected to bring significant changes to the information and communication architecture for power grids. The security requirements, real-time operation of power systems, and legacy communication and interfaces development of power systems, as well as system and data silos of IoT and blockchain networks in the energy sector, contributed to the challenges of integration of IoT into the power systems, and blockchain-powered energy services in a larger scale. Blockchain technologies are expected to bring significant changes to energy consumption behaviors, demanding integration of P2P networks with Industrial IoT and IoT networks, and the OT&IT systems of the power grids to support millions of prosumers. The integration of these three domains is expected to support energy trading and new services to energy prosumers, maximize distributed energy resources consumption, improve overall energy efficiency, encourage flexibility aggregation and virtual power plant markets. This paper analyzes the IT&OT systems of the power grids, particularly the IEC series standards adopted by the electric industry, IoT integration and examples of integration, and blockchain peer-to-peer network. The paper analyzes the challenges of eco-development of these three relatively independent ICT domains, provides an analysis and an outlook of the integration of these three domains.