We have built a Smart City prototype by leveraging IOT

Abstract of Smart Grid for Smart City Applications with IOT & BLockChain As Underlining Technology

Smart grid is an electrical grid which induces a variety of operational & energy measures including smart meters, smart appliances, renewable energy resources and energy efficient resources. The most important aspects of the smart grid are electronic power conditioning, control of production of electricity and distribution of electricity. The Internet Of Things is the internetworking of physical devices, vehicles, buildings and other items – embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators and network connections that enable these objects to collect and exchange data. When IOT is augmented with sensors & actuators, the technology becomes an instance of the more general class of cyber–physical systems, which also encompass technologies such as smart grids & expanding to areas such as smart cities. [i.e. making smart things smarter] Therefore, the strong coupling of information and communication technologies (ICT) – especially via the usage of networked embedded devices with the energy domain is leading to a sophisticated dynamic ecosystem referred to as the Internet Of Energy. In the last mile of the smart grid i.e. the future smart home, heterogeneous device will be able measure & share their energy consumption & actively participate in energy management systems.

We have built a Smart City prototype by leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart Contracts to come up with a peer-to-peer monitored energy distribution system to solve most of the power grid problems in the state of Rajasthan. The main problems with the existing infrastructure are :-

• Billing process requires manual intervention.
• Electricity bill may not be paid on time by the buyer
• Illegal tapping of power lines
• Unethical selling of units by electricity board

We have proposed an IOT and blockchain based solution :

• An IOT enabled meter is installed in every house, that sends the meter reading at regular intervals to a decentralized blockchain. This way, every house’s usage is transparent.
• Local transformers and power plants too are connected to the blockchain and upload their electricity transactions on a regular basis. Hence, in case of illegal tapping of electricity, the sum of electricity usage by individual houses and transformers/power plants will not be equal, and the blockchain will detect this theft.
• The household now pays through a Smart Contract that fetches the unit usage of the meter from the blockchain. Once the required amount is paid, the Smart - Contract uploads this transaction to a payment blockchain, and sends a permit signal to the IOT-enabled meter for next month
• The meter too is a smart device. If it does not receive a permit from the Smart Contract (e.g. when the bill is not paid on time), then it trips the connection of the house. Hence, manual intervention is not needed and the process is automated.