The reason behind discrepancies is that monthly energy consumptions are often approximated and forecast based on historic usage values, weather and other factors. Other reasons include incorrect bookkeeping (e.g., wrong meter number billed to consumers, etc.) [1], and forecast values may not reflect actual usage. This raises issues of trust (disputes) between energy consumers and energy suppliers
This project explores the use of emerging Blockchain Technology to model this use case and resolve potential disputes. We assume that a metering unit at a consumer (e.g., a smart meter) regularly publishes consumption data to a Blockchain, so called smart contracts tally consumption statistics on a per consumer basis to accurately reflect consumption, and allow to compare outcomes with information assessed by providers. The project will explore how to add and remove consumers, how to tally up consumption, how to check between calculated and assessed values, and how to scale processing to large numbers of households. In realizing this use case, this project will compare the Ethereum, the Hyperledger and the Cosmos (Tendermint) Blockchains, all available as open source.
The project could be extended to account for prosumers (consume and supply energy) and to other billing issues (to be found by the student) that may arise in this context.
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