Maximizing Consumers’ Satisfaction with Risk Decision in Distributed Energy Systems: A Proof-of-Prospect Blockchain Consensus Mechanism

Abstract Purpose: With the increasing decentralization of energy systems, traditional optimization schemes have become inadequate in maximizing consumers' satisfaction for energy allocation. This challenge may be addressed by blockchain thanks to its decentralization. However, existing blockchains have not been integrated their consensus mechanisms with mathematical optimization of energy allocation in the application layer. Especially, there are no consensus mechanisms of blockchains designed to support the satisfaction optimization with risk decisions of energy allocation. Therefore, we aim to propose a consensus mechanism, named Proof-of-Prospect (PoP), to maximize consumers' satisfaction with risk decisions in distributed energy allocation systems. Methods: Inspired by the fact that the solutions are hard to find but easy to verify, PoP replaces the inefficient mining in Proof-of-Work by the satisfaction optimization problem with risk decisions, thus improving satisfaction while avoiding excessive energy waste. Results: The results demonstrate that compared with existing consensus mechanisms, PoP ensures reliability and fairness while enhances consumer satisfaction and integrates satisfaction optimization to reduce energy consumption.