Increasing Photovoltaic Self-consumption: An Approach with Game Theory and Blockchain

Abstract

In this paper, we present a distributed approach to optimise self-consumption on a university campus grid. The grid contains photovoltaic generators, electric vehicles, loads and a battery. We propose to solve the optimisation problem with a distributed method using game theory, where each element of the grid tries to reach its own objectives. In addition to this optimisation framework, we develop a physical model of the grid. This model uses real consumption and production data. We use it to simulate the production and consumption profiles obtained from the optimisation problem in order to check if these solutions respect the grid constraints. Finally, we propose to implement concretely this distributed approach using a private blockchain, which stores production and consumption data. In addition, a smart contract is deployed on the blockchain to transcribe the game theory framework. The smart contract collects the preferences of each element of the grid and launches the optimisation process. Then the blockchain gathers the results and replaces the role of a central optimisation supervisor. We present some preliminary results to illustrate our method.