(2021-2024, funded by ahoi.digital, principal investigator: Professor Matthias Mnich, co-investigator: Professor Petra Berenbrink, UHH)

The transition of the European Union towards a carbon-neutral modern economy is one of the major challenges of this decade. As one key means, a decentralized generation and trading approach of electrical energy by so-called prosumers from renewable sources is promoted. This way, households generate parts of their consumed electrical energy from solar panels, and trade remaining energy and excess energy within their community and the large supplier. In this project we address the challenging algorithmic questions arising in such “smart grid” settings: How much self-generated energy to consume and how much to sell? How to implement trade through smart contracts? At which prices and at which times to sell, and buy, energy from other prosumers and the supplier? What is the best strategy to decide how much energy to generate, and at which at which cost? How to use blockchains to verify the integrity of trades? How to ensure 99.99% availability of power? How to forecast energy consumption with uncertain demands and uncertain solar power?The goal in this project is to developed advanced algorithmic methods to answer these questions, to implement these methods and make them work in real-life, to make a strong impact on our future society.