Blockchain-based orchestration of distributed assets in electrical power systems

For historical reasons, power systems are designed, controlled and operated centrally. A coordination of the rising number of increasingly heterogeneous, small-scale and citizen- or company-owned assets is not possible with this approach, especially not in the distribution system. The goal of the PhD project presented in this extended abstract is to find out how well distributed approaches perform in orchestrating distributed assets in future power systems from a holistic point of view in comparison to centralized approaches. The research questions are defined and the planned methodology of the project is presented. The most promising use cases in this context are identified, the concept of a decentralized virtual power plant is proposed as a new use case for providing flexibility with small-scale assets and the first ideas for an evaluation framework are presented. Next steps in the project are refining the evaluation framework and evolving the yet existing lab setups. Once these are completed, simulation models can be developed and the main research questions can be answered in detail. © 2018, The Author(s).