A Secure and Scalable Distributed Ledger Architecture for Supervision and Management of Decentralized Energy Resources

Abstract

The increasing number of behind-the-meter distributed energy resources (DERs) is changing traditional distribution systems in a big way by adding new ways to control and monitor them. But the effectiveness and dependability of these systems depend heavily on the accuracy of the data (like measurements, control commands, etc.) that the prosumers, aggregators, and grid operators share with each other. In addition, traditional power systems rely entirely on trusted aggregators to gather data from these DERs. If these aggregators are hacked, the whole system could be at risk. In this paper, we respond to these concerns by suggesting a hierarchical blockchain-based framework that includes a distributed integrity auditing system for measuring DERs. By using hash functions and Merkle trees, a secure and lightweight blockchain-based hash aggregation protocol is made to make sure that behind-the-meter DERs' measurements are real. Also, an automated distributed sanity check of DERs' set points (control commands) is suggested to lower the risk of coordinated cyber attacks on a large number of DERs. The suggested framework is put into action and tested in a number of different situations to see how well it works and how safe it is. The results show that the framework can handle more work because it can cut its runtime and storage costs by about 47% and 44%, respectively.