A systematic review on blockchain-based energy trading in a decentralized transactive energy system: Opportunities, complexities, strategic challenges, research directions

The current hike in electricity demand, deterioration of electrical grids, and climatic conditions have necessitated the push for technology to enhance energy efficiency, optimize energy usage, and minimize greenhouse gas emissions. The Transactive Energy System (TES) is a highly favoured technology designed to provide solutions for optimizing energy usage since it incorporates economic and dynamic control mechanisms to balance the amount of energy generated and supplied. Cost savings present a clear advantage of TES for consumers, translating to reduced bills, and the platform enables customers with Distributed Energy Resources to trade their excess energy, transforming consumers into prosumers. However, energy trading in TES comes with challenges such as maintaining a dynamic balance between supply and demand, as well as issues of privacy, trust, and resilience. Blockchain Technology (BT)-based TES can address these challenges due to its reliability, transaction transparency, and robust encryption methods. However, BT has its shortcomings that need to be addressed. Therefore, this research analyzes the opportunities, limitations, challenges, and complexities of implementing blockchain-based energy trading platforms within a decentralized TES. This review adopted a systematic approach, known as the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses, to provide in-depth insights into the review purpose, methodology, findings, recommendations, and future research directions. It was observed from the review that certain challenges underscore the necessity for standardization in BT-based TES implementation. Moreover, it was discovered that decentralizing the TES energy trading infrastructure promotes energy democracy and that adopting fast computing techniques will facilitate digital and intelligent operations in TES. It was also found that the Directed Acyclic Graph-based distributed ledger may soon replace generic blockchain, as it can simultaneously process large micro-transactions in P2P networks. It is observed that implementing a peer rating mechanism in the energy trading network will enhance participants' commitment to their reputational standing in the market, while adapting analytical modelling for performance evaluation of this energy solution could equally be encouraged.