Lightweight Hash-Based Authentication Protocol for Smart Grids

Reducing the power supply-demand gap and increasing reliability of power supply are the challenges of current energy management. Implementation of smart grid, smart meters and smart metering can be a possible solution for power demand reduction, efficient power supply management, and optimization of management resource usages. Smart meters include sophisticated measurement and calculation hardware, software, calibration and communication capabilities. For interoperability within a smart grid infrastructure, smart meters are designed to perform functions, and store and communicate data according to certain standards. In this work we discuss smart meter and various elements of smart metering, current state of the technologies related to smart grid, smart meter, advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), and meter data flow in smart grid. We also discuss standards related to smart meter, meter data format and data transmission, functions of smart meter, and functionalities of smart meters, currently deployed by utilities around the world.

Smart grid (SG) achieves more convenient and efficient power transmission through the rapid development of the information and communication technology. In addition to the transmission of electrical energy, the SG system also involves privacy and control information of service providers, which is closely related to people's livelihood. However, at present, the data in the SG system are transmitted in the form of plaintext, which does not have complete protection measures for entity privacy and communication data security. Focusing on preserving entity privacy and data security, this article proposes an anonymous secure authentication protocol (ASAP-SG) for the SG environment. Based on elliptic curve cryptography and physical unclonable function, ASAP-SG can realize authentication and key agreement between smart meters and service providers. The security of ASAP-SG has been verified with proverif tool and proven strictly under the real-or-random model. Furthermore, heuristic analysis manifests that ASAP-SG can successfully resist known security attacks. Finally, a fully comparison with the other five most advanced schemes reveals that ASAP-SG consumes the optimal computation cost on both smart meters and service providers and reduces the communication overhead by 33.3%–45.8%, on the basis of satisfying ten security objectives. These features make ASAP-SG more suitable for resource-constrained SG environment.

Synthetically analyze the power distribution communication network technology in the smart power grid link. It mainly includes the summary of the smart distribution network, electric power communication backbone network and then layer communication requirements, the network mode and the application mode of WLAN technology in the distribution network, EPON network technology, micropower wireless technology, PTN technology and power broadband wireless systems. State the demand of the smart power distribution business and put forward technical guidance for the smart power distribution communication network scheme. In view of the complex distribution network architecture, more nodes and scattered, complex business types data business needs, put forward the integrated solutions of optical fiber communication as the backbone access, wireless bandwidth, passive optical communication as the coverage, the short distance wireless communication as the main terminal access. It provides a reference for the communication plan of distribution side.

A smart grid is a next-generation intelligent power grid, created by grafting ICT (Information Communication Technology) onto the current grid, which allows power suppliers and consumers to communicate on a two-way basis in real-time and to improve energy efficiency. Current grids are based on a one-way communication structure where power is generated in plants (utilities) and consumed in homes or buildings. However, in a smart grid, energy delivery and consumption is optimized using a real-time power supply and consumption data based on a two-way interactive communication structure. Therefore, as illustrated in Figure 1, significant improvements are expected throughout the value chain from generation to consumption in a smart grid. For example, at the generation stage, even unstable intermittent renewable energy sources like solar energy and wind energy can be connected to the grid and large-scale renewable plants can be established. In addition, consumers would be able to generate electricity by building solar or wind generation systems in their own home or building. At the transmission/substation/distribution stages, information on devices and electricity in the grid would be delivered in real time and reliable fault prediction, efficient outage management and automatic self-repair (self healing) would become possible, ensuring a supply of stable electricity. The most significant change will take place in the consumers’ (home/building) stage, where consumers will now be able to use or sell the electricity generated by distributed generation using an energy storage device. Consumers will also be able to buy electricity when the price 1 is low and sell when the price is high. Consumers will then be able to participate in not only consumption, but also in generation and sales; they will be able to monitor the price of electricity and the information on their energy consumption in real time and change their consumption behavior accordingly. However, in order to induce real participation from the consumer’s side, HAN (Home Area Network) and home energy management systems have to be established first, and the service has to be designed to be user-friendly and based on consumers’ values and needs. In this study, we explored the perception of consumers and the value they experienced when using electricity at home, to identify their unmet needs and suggest a few new services.

Smart grids allow automated meter readings and facilitate two-way communications between the smart meters and utility control centers. As the smart grid becomes more intelligent, it becomes increasingly vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Smart grid security mainly focuses on mutual authentication and key management techniques. An impeding factor in grid security is the memory and processing constraints of the smart meters. The aim of this thesis is to propose a lightweight mutual authentication protocol with an effective key renewal mechanism between a residential smart meter and a gateway. The authentication protocol proposed in the thesis, guarantees source authentication, data integrity, message confidentiality, as well as non-repudiation. The security analysis renders this protocol robust against several attacks. Furthermore, its performance analysis provides meticulous results as to how the proposed protocol is efficient in terms of computation overhead, average delay and buffer occupancy at the gateway.

The Smart Grid (SG) is an upgraded electrical system integrated with Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to provide two-way data exchange between power consumers and manufacturers. This innovation facilitates smooth digital connectivity between smart devices like Smart Appliances (SAs), Smart Meters (SMs), and the Service Provider (SP), enabling remote data management to achieve enhanced energy distribution. However, using insecure wireless communications channels poses serious security threats, such as replay, impersonation, man-in-the-middle, and physical capture attacks. Numerous cryptographic algorithms, including RSA, Bilinear Pairing, Data Encryption Standard (DES), and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), are used in existing studies to address the problem of information breakout. Furthermore, because the parameters and key space are so large, these methods suffer from higher computing costs and communication overhead. To resolve this issue, we have proposed a lattice-based privacy-preserving framework for the SG network that can withstand quantum attacks. Moreover, because quantum computers cannot solve the lattice-based hard problems, the lattice-based signcryption scheme is developed to resist quantum attacks. We have also integrated blockchain technology with the proposed scheme to make the data tamper-resistant and secure against adversary attacks. The proposed protocol is intended to offer data confidentiality, data integrity, and unforgeability. The proposed protocol also withstands several known attacks, such as Man-in-the-Middle (MITM), replay, known session key, insider, and post-quantum attacks. We have simulated our scheme using the AVISPA simulation program, which proves the efficiency and effectiveness of our proposed scheme in meeting the required security properties.

Driven by the information age, a paradigm shift is starting to occur in the urban water planning and management field, mainly due to the introduction of advanced metering and communications technologies. This chapter explores the potential role of intelligent water metering systems, and the smart application of resultant data sets for the future of water planning and management in the built environment. Intelligent water meters essentially perform three functions; they automatically and electronically capture, collect and communicate up-to-date water usage readings on a real-time (or nearly real-time) basis. To translate this data into useful information, a comprehensive intelligent water metering system is required, which integrates high-resolution metering (e.g., 0.01?l; 5?sec), communication technologies (e.g., GPRS) and information management systems, in order to provide real-time information on how, when and where water is being consumed for the customer and water business. This chapter seeks to promote the uptake and application of intelligent water metering systems by examining the benefits and drivers of, and barriers to, intelligent metering. Specifically, it presents applicable examples of where intelligent metering systems can significantly enhance current activities in terms of citywide urban planning, infrastructure planning, water demand management and customer satisfaction.

In light of the increasing cost of electricity and the Global Warming campaigns to reduce general electricity usage, there is a growing interest in analysing power consumption in households[6]. By analyzing the electricity usage of appliances more accurate conclusions can be drawn on their efficiency and need for replacement . Furthermore , this can also determine whether an appliance is drawing unusually high amounts of power when turned off and whether it should rather be unplugged. In this way electricity consumption and cost can be reduced[1] . The smart meter project is one of the most important needs these days, In Smart Grid ; the smart meters are versatile role with intelligent capabilities in order to meet the consumer's demands and each objective[5]. Smart meter can measure and communicate detailed real-time electricity usage, facilitate remote real-time monitoring and control power consumptions and consumers are providedwith real time pricing and analysed usage information, which is a technical data to be transmitted to the grid, who are utility providers. More detailed feedback on each appliance to the user[5]. Future smart grids will likely to be more tightly integrated with the cyber infrastructure for sensing, control , scheduling , dispatch, billing and cyber attacks can be detected by using smart meters and also ordering the power demand through online[6]. Every home uses electricity with different consumption and different amounts of watts according to the different types and numbers of the appliances they have[1]. Our proposed system offers a real tine feedback on the entire electricity usage and the consumption of many appliance at device level as a result, This allow the user to monitor measure and compare their energy consumption and electricity level on house hold and on device level[5].

Recently, energy management has become one of the emerging services in the area of residential network service. A smart meter is the most essential component of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) that connects the home energy management system of individual residences and a smart grid that optimizes the production, distribution, and consumption of electric power. Power strip type smart meters can be used to not only monitor but also control the electric power consumption at individual power outlet ports in the power outlet directly. They can be used to control and effectively reduce standby power consumption by the application of the direct power supply control. A smart multi-power tap (SMPT) is an advanced multi-outlet power strip type smart meter that provides important contextual information such as the identity and location of electric home appliances on the basis of the temporal power consumption data and the control of power supply to the appliances. However, the SMPT cannot be used to determine the location of appliances when the connections among SMPTs form a tree structure. In this study, we develop a mathematical model of cascade connections among SMPTs and propose a solution for obtaining the location information of the tree structure. The proposed method helps realize real applications of the SMPT for providing activity-based context-aware home network services and energy management services.

The Smart Grid is a fundamental breakthrough that will change the current electricity grid significantly. The conventional power grid is a centralized network whereas smart grid is decentralized smart network compromising power network with communication network that will facilitate two way power flows. Therefore, the design of the underlying Information and Communication Technology infrastructure is a critical challenge in this area. For the attainment of a more distributed power generation and storage system, novel communication technologies should be integrated with the power grid. In SG, the development and growth of wireless technologies can be proven as more advantageous. The best option for communicating between far nodes, infrastructure, and intelligent meters is cellular communication technology. With the emergence of the fifth generation (5G) network, mobile cellular networks are evolving to take a strong stance in attempts to achieve large-scale capacity, connectivity and processing. Both the mobile technology of today and the emerging new age of cellular network are deemed useful for the smart grid. The future cellular networks exhibit relevant services in the smart grid for critical and timely applications. Existence and future cellular networks and their vision for smart grid are presented in this article. The central point of this article is to demonstrate the future cellular network in comparison to other wireless communication technologies and new webs in a SG to effectively bring the energy of internet into the future. Benefits and challenges of emerging cellular networks for smart grid are also presented.

An efficient dependable smart power grid relies on the secure real-time data collection and transmission service provided by a monitoring system. In such a system, the measuring units, such as phasor measurement units (PMUs) and smart meters (SMs), are critical. These measuring equipments function as sensors in the smart grid. Data exchanges between these sensors and the central controller are protected by various security protocols. These protocols usually contain computationally intensive cryptographic algorithms that cause heavy energy overhead to the sensor nodes. Since PMUs and SMs are mostly energy-constrained, the problem of how to ensure the secure communication with minimum energy cost becomes a critical issue for the functionality of the whole smart grid. In this article, we focus on the low power secure communication of the PMUs and SMs. We take two wireless sensor platforms as examples to experimentally investigate the approaches and principles of reconciling the two conflicting system requirements-communication security and low energy consumptions. The proposed methods are general ones and applicable to other energy-constrained yet security sensitive systems.

The use of nonconventional power supplies featuring unstable quality of the electricity produced and fluctuations in the output power, on the one hand, and the availability of various consumers connected to power supply grids, on the other hand, are factors that give rise to phase unbalances in the grids. These circumstances complicate the operation of smart grids, especially in microgrids. One of possible ways to improve the quality of smart power supply grids is to use a three-stage solid-state transformer with galvanic isolation and two DC links, an arrangement that makes it possible to connect power supply sources and consumers, and to arrange backup storage of electricity in storage batteries. The aim of the study is to analyze the electric power quality at the output of a three-stage solid-state transformer powered by an unbalanced three-phase voltage source. The study was carried out by numerical modeling using the Matlab/Simulink software package. The modeling parameters are given, and the current and voltage waveforms at the solid-state transformer output are obtained. Phasors of the input and output voltages are constructed with expanding them into zero-, positive-, and negative sequence harmonic components. The harmonic distortion coefficients for current and voltage in each phase, and the voltage unbalance coefficients for the zero and negative sequences at the solid-state transformer input and output are determined using the method of symmetric components. It has been shown that by using solid-state transformers it becomes possible to obtain noticeably better quality of electric energy and eliminate the unbalance to the levels stipulated by the relevant state standard. It is shown that solid-state transformers are a promising technology as part of smart power supply grids, which opens the possibility to control and adjust power supply parameters, improve the power supply quality, distribute power flows between the sources and consumers, and integrate DC and AC grids of various voltage and power levels.

A survey on smart metering and smart grid communication

The most advanced power grid design, known as a ‘smart power grid’, integrates information and communication technology (ICT) with a conventional grid system to enable remote management of electricity distribution. The intelligent cyber‐physical architecture enables bidirectional, real‐time data sharing between electricity suppliers and consumers through smart meters and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). Data protection issues, such as data tampering, firmware exploitation, and the leakage of sensitive information arise due to the smart power grid's substantial reliance on ICT. To maintain reliable and efficient power distribution, these issues must be identified and resolved quickly. Intrusion detection is essential for providing secure services and alerting system administrators in the case of adversary attacks. This paper proposes an intrusion classification scheme that identifies several types of cyber attacks on modern smart power grids. Grey‐Wolf metaheuristic optimization‐based feature selection is used to learn non‐linear, overlapping, and complex electrical grid properties. An extended deep‐stacked ensemble technique is advanced by putting predictions from weak learners (CNNs) into a meta‐learner (MLP). The outcomes of this approach are explained and confirmed using explainable AI (XAI). The publicly available dataset from Mississippi State University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (MSU‐ORNL) is used to conduct experiments. The experimental results show that the proposed method achieved a peak accuracy of 96.6% while scrutinizing the original MSU‐ORNL data feature set and a maximum accuracy of 99% when analysing the selected feature set. Therefore, the proposed intrusion classification scheme may protect smart power grid systems against cyber security attacks.

Attaining a sustainable competitive advantage in the smart grid industry of China using suitable open innovation intermediaries