We are glad to announce the publication of a new scientific article for InEExS, authored by the project partners NTUA and IEECP published by IEEE and presented on the occasion of the 2023 14th International Conference on Information, Intelligence, Systems & Applications (IISA). The paper presents a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis conducted as a first stage of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) potential usages evaluation in the contexts of InEExS.
In particular, the incorporation of blockchain, a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), in energy services has been examined in literature and quite a few endeavors of DLT adoption in energy applications have been implemented by companies, universities and other organizations. The decentralized nature of blockchain, combined with the transparency and safety it provides, make it a very promising technology for energy management and trading implementations, among others. However, technical constraints, such as the scalability problem, security threats, as well as sociopolitical and regulatory barriers should not be neglected.
The European LIFE project “InEExS” pursues to apply DLT through specific business cases, so as to offer improved digital energy services and encourage energy efficiency. In this paper, the SWOT analysis presented pursues to demonstrate the reasons why blockchain could support the digitalization of energy applications and accelerate energy transition, while pointing out the most important barriers that should be addressed to ensure that DLT integration would be truly beneficial. The findings of the SWOT analysis are then combined with an assessment of prospective blockchain usages in the business cases deployed by InEExS, to identify the best practices to optimally exploit DLT in various energy applications, within and beyond the project.
