Energy Blockchain for Public Energy Communities

• Main Authors: Marco Galici, Mario Mureddu, Emilio Ghiani, Gianni Celli, Fabrizio Pilo, Paolo Porcu, Beatrice Canetto
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-04-01
• Series: Applied Sciences
• Subjects: energy communities; internet of things; blockchain; energy analytics; energy open data; sustainability KPIs
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/8/3457

This paper suggests an application of blockchain as an energy open data ledger, designed to save and track data regarding the energy footprint of public buildings and public energy communities. The developed platform permits writing energy production and consumption of public buildings using blockchain-enabled smart meters. Once authenticated on the blockchain, this data can be made available to the public domain for techno-economic analyses for either research studies and internal or third parties audits, increasing, in this way, the perceived transparency of the public institutions. A further feature of the platform, starting on the previously disclosed raw data, allows calculating, validating, and sharing sustainability indicators of public buildings and facilities, allowing the tracking of their improvements in sustainability goals. The paper also provides the preliminary results of a field-test experimentation of the proposed platform on a group of public buildings, highlighting the possible benefits of its widespread exploitation.