Consortium Blockchain for Secure Energy Trading in Industrial Internet of Things

TLDR

In industrial IoT, peer‑to‑peer energy trading occurs in microgrids, harvesting networks, and vehicle‑to‑grid networks, but faces security and privacy challenges due to untrusted, nontransparent markets. The authors propose a consortium‑blockchain based energy trading system, energy blockchain, to mitigate these security challenges. The system employs a consortium blockchain, a credit‑based payment scheme to enable fast, frequent trades, and a Stackelberg‑game based optimal pricing strategy for credit loans. Security analysis and real‑dataset simulations show that the energy blockchain and credit‑based payment scheme are secure, efficient, and eliminate the need for a trusted intermediary in P2P energy trading.

Abstract

In industrial Internet of things (IIoT), peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading ubiquitously takes place in various scenarios, e.g., microgrids, energy harvesting networks, and vehicle-to-grid networks. However, there are common security and privacy challenges caused by untrusted and nontransparent energy markets in these scenarios. To address the security challenges, we exploit the consortium blockchain technology to propose a secure energy trading system named energy blockchain. This energy blockchain can be widely used in general scenarios of P2P energy trading getting rid of a trusted intermediary. Besides, to reduce the transaction limitation resulted from transaction confirmation delays on the energy blockchain, we propose a credit-based payment scheme to support fast and frequent energy trading. An optimal pricing strategy using Stackelberg game for credit-based loans is also proposed. Security analysis and numerical results based on a real dataset illustrate that the proposed energy blockchain and credit-based payment scheme are secure and efficient in IIoT.