Disha L Dinesha

and 1 more

The application of Blockchain Technology (BCT) in the energy sector is gaining momentum as it offers functionalities such as automating local energy markets, facilitating peer-to-peer energy trading, and streamlining market operations and management. Due to these advantages, there is a growing interest in the field of Blockchain Enabled Interconnected Smart Microgrids (BSMGs). However, adoption of BSMG is limited due to scalability issues and low transaction rates of BCT. Growing adoption of BSMGs will also lead to adoption of different types of BCT platforms. This heterogeneity within the system could potentially create opportunity for some platforms to monopolize the market. These challenges can be addressed by establishing interoperability between blockchains, irrespective of the BCT platform they utilize. Interoperability not only enables communication and transactions across BSMGs but also unlocks the potential for inter-microgrid market mechanisms, which would otherwise be hindered. This paper proposes the use of Cosmos, a network or hub that facilitates interconnection between blockchains, applications, and services through the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol to achieve inter-chain communication. An open-source command-line interface called Ignite CLI is utilized to create modular and customizable blockchains for BSMGs that inherently connect to Cosmos via IBC. This paper defines the process for establishing inter-chain communication and demonstrates, for the first time in the energy domain, interoperability between BSMGs. The paper also analyzes execution times for different scenarios involving varying information packet sizes, parallel communication, and the effect of adding a third BSMG on the execution time of the system.