Blockchain-based Online Information Sharing Platform for Improving the Resilience of Industrial Symbiosis-based Multi Energy Systems
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The concept of Industrial Symbiosis (IS) is gaining prominence worldwide, especially as countries aim to transition towards a circular economy (CE). CE business models based on IS principles can close-the-loop for more efficient resource management through synergistic collaborations between firms. IS helps exchange waste streams across a network of firms (NoF) that not only profit economically but also have environmental co-benefits. Among the waste streams in IS, energy flows across the NoF exits, and they are in different forms. The synergistic collaborations between the NoF results in an Industrial Symbiosis-based Multi Energy System (IS-MES). Such IS-MES minimize energy purchase costs and maximize environmental performance. However, the actual implementation of such IS-MES is vulnerable to cascading failures emerging from one firm in the network, which make them inherently resilient. To counter this resilience challenge, we propose the use of the Blockchain-based Online Information Sharing (BOIS) platform for IS-MES. Here, a firm-to-firm (F2F) IS relationship establishment mechanism following the IS principles is possible through the blockchain-based smart contracts. This study quantifies and compare the resilience of the BOIS with the business-as-usual scenario based on mixed-methods modelling approach. The IS-MES integrated BOIS platform is divided into three layers: the physical layer, searching layer, and execution layer. Firms of an IS-MES that supply excess/waste energy will be registered under the physical layer. Disruptive scenario are applied on the firms in a systematic manner to examine the robustness of the IS-MES and its ability to recover by finding F2F energy exchange through the searching layer. Lastly, smart contracts will be drawn to execute these F2F relationship that allow physical flow of energy between NoF. The integration of BOIS in IS-MES provides adaptive capacity to efficiently create F2F the relationships and avoid any cascading energy failures between firms, thus bolstering the overall resilience.
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