# A Systematic Analysis of Real-World Energy Blockchain Initiatives
## 1 Introduction  
An energy blockchain may be considered a distributed ledger dedicated to the management of energy transactions between generation and load nodes across power systems [1]. These ledgers promise to significantly disrupt the energy sector by lowering the cost of economic transactions and removing superfluous third parties from the energy value chain. However, large-scale and grid-integrated energy blockchains needed to facilitate real-world operations are commonly owned by private entities with a strong commercial focus, which can naturally impede the dissemination of technical specifications, energy market models and engineering knowledge to the wider research community. Although innovative and important research can be undertaken within small-scale experimental environments, research efforts focused on developing high-impact and commercial-oriented energy blockchains should integrate and interoperate with existing private and public infrastructure [2]. This includes the establishment of information streams between physical metering and energy blockchains, which has been highlighted as an important challenge for system regulators and energy providers [3]. Indeed, blockchains cannot be operationalised in real-world energy operations without sufficient cooperation between energy providers, grid operators and government agencies [4].  
At present, applied academic and industrial researchers wishing to advance the development and adoption of real-world energy blockchains may be impeded due to limited visibility of methods and challenges. This research aims to explore and understand the current state of real-world energyblockchains, and highlight prominent trends relating to growth rates, failure rates, information sharing and technology adoption. Some of the primary challenges specific to real-world energy blockchains are summarised below.
* **Infrastructure and environment:** energy providers and grid operators control the infrastructure needed for large-scale integrated energy blockchains. Therefore, applied researchers are somewhat restricted to theoretical and experimental contributions that may not directly align with real-world environments.
* **Technical transparency:** blockchain platforms and smart contracts are highly configurable technologies, which can be designed using many different frameworks, architectures and algorithms. However, technical details from real-world energy blockchain pilots(e.g., blockchain platform and consensus algorithm) are difficult to acquire, while negative outcomes and technical failures (e.g., approaches that did not scale) are not reported.
* **Project innovation velocity:** given the contemporary and experimental nature of energy blockchains, strategic direction and technical approaches may change rapidly using quick and iterative development cycles. Although such changes are expected, the reasons and insights driving change and innovation are not reported to the broader researcher community. Of course, while game-changing insights may represent key competitive advantages that cannot be publicly shared, exposing less commercially sensitive insights from across industry could prove an invaluable resource to the field.