Privacy-preserving smart grid traceability using blockchain over IoT connectivity

Abstract

Smart grid (SG) technology comes with various advantages, among others, of efficient power distribution, reduction in cost consumption, maintain energy loss, and peak quality level in its supply chain. SG aims to provide all required and advanced features to overcome the issues of the existing power grid and to fulfill the rapidly growing demands of power generation, transmission, distribution, and monitoring energy consumption. However, SG has been facing various challenges to ensure the nature of every transaction, transaction verification, and recording in the power supply chain, especially in the context of a large scale IoT(Internet of things) network. Another issue is maintaining the privacy of every transaction, as well as the privacy of participating entities in the power supply chain. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based proof-of-concept solution to manage every transaction that occurs in an IoT-aided smart grid system. Our solution, IoT-aided smart grid system with blockchain, provides an immutable transaction record, which is always shared and transparent to each participant of the system. Transactions are carried through IoT objects connected in a smart grid, and are recorded, verified, and validated on a blockchain immutable ledger. Furthermore, to verify and maintain the privacy of participants, cryptographic pseudonyms are used by each participant to interact with the SG supply chain, without revealing personal identities and important private information of the participants to malicious entities in the system.