Towards a Blockchain Implementation of a Governance & Revenue Dispersal Mechanism for Investments in Battery Energy Storage Systems

The rapid onboarding of renewable generation has led to many difficulties for both generators and the grid due to volatile output and market conditions. Battery energy storage systems have begun to alleviate these issues. However, such systems face many financial challenges in their deployment and operation. This paper demonstrates the use of advanced distributed ledger technology with smart contracts to design a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) to manage the investments in these systems and optimise their operations. In this paper, a series of smart contracts have been designed, deployed, and tested to demonstrate the effectiveness of such a DAO framework for battery management. The interconnected smart contracts can manage the financing, governing, and revenue-sharing mechanisms, allowing investors to coordinate investment and vote on the battery energy storage system’s operation (charge/float/discharge) for a given period. This interconnected smart contract design implementation demonstrates a novel and effective strategy for managing battery energy storage systems, decreasing barriers to entry for investors, thus, allowing a greater adoption of such technology.