Blockchain for Energy Credits and Certificates: A Comprehensive Review

Abstract

Climate change is a major issue that has disastrous impacts on the environment through different causes like the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. Many energy utilities around the world intend to reduce GHG emissions by promoting different systems including carbon emission trading (CET), renewable energy certificates (RECs), and tradable white certificates (TWCs). However, these systems are centralized, highly regulated, and operationally expensive and do not meet transparency, trust and security requirements. Accordingly, GHG emission reduction schemes are gradually moving towards blockchain-based solutions due to their underpinning characteristics including decentralization, transparency, anonymity, and trust (independent from third parties). This paper performs a comprehensive investigation into the blockchain technology, deployed for GHG emission reduction plans. It explores existing blockchain solutions along with their associated challenges to effectively uncover their potentials. As a result, this study suggests possible lines of research for future enhancements of blockchain systems particularly their incorporation in GHG emission reduction.