{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,5]],"date-time":"2026-02-05T08:30:22Z","timestamp":1770280222614,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":31,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2018,9,4]],"date-time":"2018-09-04T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1536019200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Energies"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Energy markets are based on energy transactions with a central control entity, where the players are companies. In this research work, we propose an IoT (Internet of Things) system for the accounting of energy flows, as well as a blockchain approach to overcome the need for a central control entity. This allows for the creation of local energy markets to handle distributed energy transactions without needing central control. In parallel, the system aggregates users into communities with target goals and creates new markets for players. These two approaches (blockchain and IoT) are brought together using a gamification approach, allowing for the creation and maintenance of a community for electricity market participation based on pre-defined goals. This community approach increases the number of market players and creates the possibility of traditional end users earning money through small coordinated efforts. We apply this approach to the aggregation of batteries from electrical vehicles so that they become a player in the spinning reserve market. It is also possible to apply this approach to local demand flexibility, associated with the demand response (DR) concept. DR is aggregated to allow greater flexibility in the regulation market based on an OpenADR approach that allows the turning on and off of predefined equipment to handle local microgeneration.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/en11092330","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,9,5]],"date-time":"2018-09-05T03:08:55Z","timestamp":1536116935000},"page":"2330","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":40,"title":["Building a Community of Users for Open Market Energy"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"11","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6662-0806","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Joao C.","family":"Ferreira","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"ISTAR-IUL, Instituto Universit\u00e1rio de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Lisboa 1649-026, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8533-6595","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ana Lucia","family":"Martins","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL), Instituto Universit\u00e1rio de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Lisboa 1649-026, Portugal"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,9,4]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2262","DOI":"10.3390\/en6042262","article-title":"Energy Management and Smart Grids","volume":"6","author":"Miceli","year":"2013","journal-title":"Energies"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1007\/s11227-013-1021-9","article-title":"Wireless sensor networks: A survey on recent developments and potential synergies","volume":"68","author":"Rawat","year":"2014","journal-title":"J. Supercomput."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Koshy, P., Koshy, D., and McDaniel, P. (2014). An Analysis of Anonymity in Bitcoin Using P2P Network Traffic. Financial Cryptography and Data Security, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-662-45472-5_30"},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"6142","DOI":"10.3390\/en7096142","article-title":"Business Models in the Smart Grid: Challenges, Opportunities and Proposals for Prosumer Profitability","volume":"7","year":"2014","journal-title":"Energies"},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Morschheuser, B., Hamari, J., and Koivisto, J. (2016, January 5\u20138). Gamification in crowdsourcing: A review. Proceedings of the 2016 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), Koloa, HI, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/HICSS.2016.543"},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"268","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jpowsour.2004.12.025","article-title":"Vehicle-to-grid power fundamentals: Calculating capacity and net revenue","volume":"144","author":"Kempton","year":"2005","journal-title":"J. Power Sources"},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Garrido, P., Soares, F., and Moreira, P.A. (2017). OpenADR\u2014Intelligent Electrical Energy Consumption towards Internet-of-Things. Proceedings of the Controlo 2016 12th Portuguese Conference on Automatic Control, Springer International Publishing.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-319-43671-5"},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ferreira, J., and Afonso, J. (2013, January 17\u201320). Dynamic range prediction for an electric vehicle. Proceedings of the Electric Vehicle Symposium and Exhibition (EVS27), Barcelona, Spain.","DOI":"10.1109\/EVS.2013.6914832"},{"key":"ref_9","unstructured":"Ferreira, J., and Afonso, J. (2010, January 5\u20139). A conceptual V2G aggregation platform. Proceedings of the EVS-25 25th World Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Symposium & Exhibition, Shenzhen, China."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"154","DOI":"10.1016\/j.enbuild.2016.12.026","article-title":"An intelligent system architecture in home energy management systems (HEMS) for efficient demand response in smart grid","volume":"138","author":"Shakeri","year":"2017","journal-title":"Energy Build."},{"key":"ref_11","unstructured":"(2017). Market Data: Ancillary Service Markets for Energy Storage, Navigant Consulting, Inc."},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Fern\u00e1ndez-Caram\u00e9s, T.M., and Fraga-Lamas, P. (2018). A Review on the Use of Blockchain for the Internet of Things. IEEE Access.","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2018.2842685"},{"key":"ref_13","first-page":"6","article-title":"Blockchain technology: Beyond bitcoin","volume":"2","author":"Crosby","year":"2016","journal-title":"Appl. Innov."},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Hansch, A., Newman, C., and Schildhauer, T. (2015). Fostering Engagement with Gamification: Review of Current Practices on Online Learning Platforms, Elsevier.","DOI":"10.2139\/ssrn.2694736"},{"key":"ref_15","unstructured":"Ferreira, J., Rato, V., and Filipe, P.P. (2017, January 27\u201328). ISCTE-IUL Campus of Things\u2014IoT Approach Towards a Smart Campus. Proceedings of the International Conference on Information System Modelling and ICT System Security (ICISMISS 2017), Kathmandu, Nepal."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Guth, J., Breitenb\u00fccher, U., Falkenthal, M., Leymann, F., and Reinfurt, L. (2016, January 23\u201325). Comparison of IoT platform architectures: A field study based on a reference architecture. Proceedings of the Cloudification of the Internet of Things (CIoT), Paris, France.","DOI":"10.1109\/CIOT.2016.7872918"},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"M\u00fcnsing, E., Mather, J., and Moura, S. (2017, January 27\u201330). Blockchains for decentralized optimization of energy resources in microgrid networks. Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE Conference on Control Technology and Applications (CCTA), Kohala Coast, HI, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/CCTA.2017.8062773"},{"key":"ref_18","unstructured":"Dorri, A., Kanhere, S.S., and Jurdak, R. (arXiv, 2016). Blockchain in internet of things: Challenges and solutions, arXiv."},{"key":"ref_19","unstructured":"Aitzhan, N.Z., and Svetinovic, D. (2016). Security and privacy in decentralized energy trading through multi-signatures, blockchain and anonymous messaging streams. IEEE Trans. Dependable Secur. Comput."},{"key":"ref_20","unstructured":"Bundock, R. (2018, August 25). Smart Meters Prepaid: Bankymoon Develops Bitcoin Solution. Available online: https:\/\/www.smart-energy.com\/top-stories\/smart-meters-payment-bankymoon-develops-bitcoin-solution\/."},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Pop, C., Cioara, T., Antal, M., Anghel, I., Salomie, I., and Bertoncini, M. (2018). Blockchain based decentralized management of demand response programs in smart energy grids. Sensors, 18.","DOI":"10.3390\/s18010162"},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Mihaylov, M., Jurado, S., Avellana, N., van Moffaert, K., de Abril, I.M., and Now\u00e9, A. (2014, January 28\u201330). NRGcoin: Virtual currency for trading of renewable energy in smart grids. Proceedings of the 2014 11th International Conference on the European Energy Market (EEM), Krakow, Poland.","DOI":"10.1109\/EEM.2014.6861213"},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"870","DOI":"10.1016\/j.apenergy.2017.06.054","article-title":"Designing microgrid energy markets: A case study: The Brooklyn Microgrid","volume":"210","author":"Mengelkamp","year":"2018","journal-title":"Appl. Energy"},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ferreira, J., Monteiro, V., and Afonso, J.L. (2014). Vehicle-to-Anything Application (V2Anything App) for electric vehicles. IEEE Trans. Ind. Inform.","DOI":"10.1109\/TII.2013.2291321"},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Monteiro, V., Ferreira, J.C., Pinto, G., Pedrosa, D., and Afonso, J.L. (2010, January 19\u201322). iV2G charging platform. Proceedings of the 13th International IEEE Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems ITSC, Madeira, Portugal.","DOI":"10.1109\/ITSC.2010.5625255"},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"335","DOI":"10.1504\/IJEHV.2014.067626","article-title":"Electric vehicle assistant based on driver profile","volume":"6","author":"Ferreira","year":"2014","journal-title":"Int. J. Electr. Hybrid Veh."},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ferreira, J. (2010, January 24\u201325). Simulation of Electrical Distributed Energy Resources for Electrical Vehicles Charging Process Strategy. Proceedings of the 2010 Second Brazilian Workshop on Social Simulation, Sao Paulo, Brazil.","DOI":"10.1109\/BWSS.2010.15"},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ferreira, J.C., Monteiro, V., Pinto, J.G., Martins, A.L., and Afonso, J.L. (2017, January 21\u201323). Decision Process to Manage Renewable Energy Production in Smart Grid Environment. BT\u2014Highlights of Practical Applications of Cyber-Physical Multi-Agent Systems. Proceedings of the International Conference on Practical Applications of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, Porto, Portugal.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-319-60285-1_25"},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Samad, T., Koch, E., and Stluka, P. (2016). Automated Demand Response for Smart Buildings and Microgrids: The State of the Practice and Research Challenges. Proc. IEEE.","DOI":"10.1109\/JPROC.2016.2520639"},{"key":"ref_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"237","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rser.2016.06.008","article-title":"Managing electric flexibility from Distributed Energy Resources: A review of incentives for market design","volume":"64","author":"Eid","year":"2016","journal-title":"Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev."},{"key":"ref_31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Eid, C., Codani, P., Chen, Y., Perez, Y., and Hakvoort, R.A. (2015, January 19\u201322). Aggregation of demand side flexibility in a smart grid: A review for European market design. Proceedings of the 2015 12th International Conference on the European Energy Market (EEM), Lisbon, Portugal.","DOI":"10.1109\/EEM.2015.7216712"}],"container-title":["Energies"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1996-1073\/11\/9\/2330\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T15:18:44Z","timestamp":1760195924000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1996-1073\/11\/9\/2330"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2018,9,4]]},"references-count":31,"journal-issue":{"issue":"9","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,9]]}},"alternative-id":["en11092330"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/en11092330","relation":{},"ISSN":["1996-1073"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1996-1073","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2018,9,4]]}}}