Consumers in electricity markets are becoming more proactive because of the rapid development of demand-response management and distributed energy resources, which boost the transformation of peer-to-peer (P2P) energy-trading mechanisms. However, in the P2P negotiation process, it is a challenging task to prevent private information from being attacked by malicious agents. In this paper, we propose a privacy-preserving, two-party, secure computation mechanism for consensus-based P2P energy trading. First, a novel P2P negotiation mechanism for energy trading is proposed based on the consensus + innovation (C + I) method and the power transfer distribution factor (PTDF), and this mechanism can simultaneously maximize social welfare and maintain physical network constraints. In addition, the C + I method only requires a minimum set of information to be exchanged. Then, we analyze the strategy of malicious neighboring agents colluding to attack in order to steal private information. To defend against this attack, we propose a two-party, secure computation mechanism in order to realize safe negotiation between each pair of prosumers based on Paillier homomorphic encryption (HE), a smart contract (SC), and zero-knowledge proof (ZKP). The energy price is updated in a safe way without leaking any private information. Finally, we simulate the functionality of the privacy-preserving mechanism in terms of convergence performance, computational efficiency, scalability, and SC operations.
Energy generated through centralized power plants is eventually being replaced by Renewable energy. Due to its highly volatile nature, it aids to the fluctuations in the generation of power. These fluctuations cause major inconvenience to the consumers. Due to these disadvantages, the integration of RE into the grid poses serious challenges. The conventional grid system is also not secure from hacking. We must ensure a reliable balance between generation, consumption, and the players in the grid. We also need to make sure the grid and the communication in the grid network is secure. To tackle these challenges, we introduce a trade between the prosumers and consumers in a Peer-to-Peer fashion. All this can be achieved with the help of a blockchain network and smart contracts. Blockchain is a safe, secure and reliable platform and is tamper-proof. This paper presents the use of Blockchain and smart contracts to design a framework for energy trading in the developing countries.
Intermittent distributed energy resources (DERs) add challenges to the modern power system network. On the other hand, information and communication technology (ICT) is changing traditional electricity grids into smart grids, which facilitates a decentralized system in which prosumers may participate in energy trading. Smart grids, DER integration, and network connectivity are adding complexity to the power system network day by day; Blockchain technology might be a great tool to manage the network’s operational complexity. The Blockchain provides for quicker, frictionless, secure, and transparent transactions. With the addition of smart contracts, it may be utilized to manage the expanding complexity of the contemporary power system. In this study, the authors focus on the scope, challenges, and potential future direction of Blockchain technology application in the power system. Blockchain has received interest and has been used for decentralized power system applications in recent years, but it is still young and has scalability, decentralization, and security concerns. This article discusses the interfaces and the possibilities that can assure trust, security, and transparency in decentralized power system applications and make a decentralized power system and power market possible.
This paper describes the pilot implementation of blockchain technology (Ethereum) for smart grid data management in the IT environment of electrical distribution company Elektro Celje. The work focuses on the decentralised notation of smart meter data to enable secure access and prevent data misuse. The procedure for setting up the pilot project and the operational functions as well as the results of the performance tests are presented and discussed.
Roberto Tonelli, Michele Marchesi, Andrea Pinna, Mario Mureddu · 7 authors
Transmission and Distribution Systems Operators are facing the need for new market tools able to evaluate the potential of flexibility contracting, with smart and decentralized energy production, consumption, and exchange. The blockchain technology, has been proposed in platforms and projects for energy trading, given that BC platforms natively support not only decentralization but also transparency, privacy, smart grid management, token trading, pseudo-anonymity, and other desirable features of a smart and decentralized market. However, BC software projects are complex, may be large, and often exposed to critical failures. To reduce the chance of such failures and to improve the quality of the software development process, this paper introduces software development methodologies for blockchain applications specific to the decentralized energy market. By using Blockchain Oriented Software Engineering (BOSE) and Agile Block-Chain Dapp Engineering (ABCDE), a novel decentralized application based on an energy token is proposed, defined by a smart contract on the ERC721 standard, that can be refilled, resold, emptied, and traded even without any energy content. According to the ABCDE methodology, the system has been divided into two subsystems, the BC and the application levels, and determined the actors and the related use case diagrams.
Marco Galici, Emilio Ghiani, Mario Mureddu, Fabrizio Pilo · 7 authors
In the last years, the improvements in distributed ledger technologies brought disruptive improvements in the management of distributed energy resources. The availability of public, immutable and trustless ledgers allowed for the creation of decentralized energy exchange platforms, potentially held in an autonomous way by smart distributed devices. However, the vast amount of data exchanged in these processes, and its potentially infinite lifetime once shared on distributed ledger technologies, posed different privacy and information security issues. In this view, this paper proposes a methodology for performing autonomous, decentralized and secure local energy markets, which does not disclose sensitive information about the user or the market itself. The proposed methodology has been applied on a Hardware in the Loop experimental setup and proved to provide a privacy-safe and fair way to manage a distributed resources in an energy community and/or smart city context.
The control of future power grids is migrating from a centralized to a distributed/decentralized scheme to enable a massive penetration of distributed energy resources and bring extreme enhancements of autonomous operations in terms of grid resilience, security, and reliability. Most effort has been on the design of distributed/decentralized controllers; however, the guarantees of the proper execution of the controls are also essential but relatively less emphasized. A common assumption is that local controllers would fully follow the designated controller dynamics based on the data received from communication channels. Such an assumption could be risky because proper execution of the controller dynamics is then built on trust in secure communication and computation. On the other hand, it is impractical for a verifier to repeat all the computations involved in the controls to verify the computational integrity. In this work, we leverage a type of cryptography technology, known as zero-knowledge scalable transparent arguments of knowledge to verify the computational integrity of control algorithms, such that verifiers can check the computational integrity with much less computational burden. The method presented here converts the challenge of data integrity into a subset of computational integrity. In this proof-of-concept paper, our focus will be on projected linear dynamics that are commonly seen in distributed/decentralized power system controllers. In particular, we have derived polynomial conditions in the context of zk-STARKs for the projected linear dynamics.
Xin Zhou, Liaoyi Ning, Bin Wang, Chao Yang · 6 authors
Load shedding scheme is utilized to deal with black-outs caused by continuously growing loads. Conventional load shedding scheme repressively shed interruptible loads ignoring the economic profits of them. This paper proposes a smart contract based load shedding scheme in an industrial park. The proposed scheme incentivizes factories in the industrial park to actively shed their interruptible loads by designing a market that maximizes the total social welfare. Furthermore, the load shedding process is implemented using a smart contract to automatically obtain trustable and transparent load shedding results. The modified IEEE 33-bus distribution case proves that the proposed load shedding scheme effectively increases the profits of all participating factories and incentivizes them to shed their interruptible loads.
In this work, we elaborate on the concept of process authenticity, which intuitively corresponds to the validity of all process steps and their proper binding. It represents the most exciting forefront of distributed ledger technology research concerning the primary challenge of reliably connecting distributed ledger networks to the physical context it must operate. More in detail, the paper describes a novel methodological approach to ensure the authenticity of business processes through blockchain and several security mechanisms applied to the digital twins of the actual processes. We illustrate difficulties and opportunities deriving from implementing process authenticity in concrete case studies in which we were involved as software designers belonging to three critical application domains: document dematerialization, e-voting, and healthcare.
DC microgrids with distributed architectures inevitably encounter the threats of communication constraints and cyber attacks, and there is little research to address these two communication irregularities simultaneously. To provide DC microgrids with maximum resistance to communication constraints and cyber attacks, a distributed predictive secure control method based on blockchain protocol is proposed in this paper. The proposed control approach is the first attempt to address cyber attacks with a hybrid of data and models, improving the resilience and robustness of DC microgrids. With the help of practical Byzantine ideas, the proposed strategy preserves the resilience strengths of the blockchain against corruption and discards its shortcomings of low real-time performance, significantly enhancing the security without compromising the dynamic performance of the system by active intervention. Subsequently, a bound on the communication delay induced by the blockchain network under the expected security index is given based on the theoretical analysis. Unlike the existing practice of passively tolerating communication delays and packet dropouts, the predictive control method proposed in this paper actively compensates for them experienced by DC microgrids. Then, an analytical model of the closed-loop DC microgrid system is developed, and stability analysis is presented accordingly. Finally, several experimental tests performed on a PV-based DC microgrid hardware system are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.
In order to analyze real-time power data without revealing users’ privacy, privacy-preserving data aggregation schemes have been extensively researched in smart grid. However, most of the existing schemes either can only allow stationary users, or require a trusted center. In this paper, we propose an efficient and robust multidimensional data aggregation scheme based on blockchain. In our scheme, a leader election algorithm in Raft protocol is used to select a mining node from all smart meters to aggregate data. A dynamically verifiable secret sharing homomorphism scheme is adopted to realize flexible dynamic user management. In addition, our scheme can not only resist internal and external attacks but also support multidimensional data aggregation and fault tolerance. The security analysis shows that our proposed scheme is IND-CPA secure and can meet stronger security features. The experimental results show that compared with other schemes, our scheme can be implemented with lower computation and communication overhead.
With the large-scale deployment of renewable energy sources, the power trading system faces dual challenges of trust and efficiency. In this paper, we propose a novel distributed trusted transaction strategy for virtual power plants by using smart contracts on Hyperledger Fabric to provide energy services. A matching mechanism has been defined to realize automatic matching between purchases and sales. Furthermore, transaction records are stored in a blockchain distributed ledger, which will prevent trade disputes in transaction settlements. The Golang programming language is utilized to generate the transaction smart contracts, and a modified IEEE 33-bus distribution system is selected as the case study in order to develop and verify this market framework. The results show that the proposed solution successfully improves the efficiency and safety of power transactions, and benefits both purchases and sales in the virtual power plant.
SolSec Labs is a web-based application that provides interactive training labs for blockchain developers, especially students eager to learn more about smart contract security to gain practical knowledge ( <xref ref-type="fig" rid="fig1" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Fig. 1</xref> ). It teaches solidity and smart contract security skills through hands-on experience. The easy-to-understand environment enables students and early developers to immediately apply newly learned secure coding practices to their ongoing projects. Currently, it consists of a total of 10 labs crafted using examples taken from the most severe real-world vulnerabilities. Every lab teaches developers about the related vulnerability; exploitation methods; preventive and remediation measures; and, finally, a step-by-step list of lab tasks to perform to secure the presented vulnerable code.
Smart Grid Security and Resilience
Security and Verification in Computing
Advancements in Semiconductor Devices and Circuit Design
The Energy Internet (EI) and Smart Grid 2.0 (SG 2.0) concepts are potential challenges in industry and research. The purpose of SG 2.0 and EI is to automate innovative power grid operations. To move from Distribution Network Operators (DSO) to consumer-centric distributed power grid management, the blockchain and smart contracts are applicable. Blockchain technology and integrated SGs will present challenges, limiting the deployment of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs). This review looks at the decentralization of the Smart Grid 2.0 using blockchain technology. Energy trading has increased due to access to distributed energy sources and electricity producers who can financially export surplus fuels. The energy trading system successfully combines energy from multiple sources to ensure consistent and optimal use of available resources and better facilities for energy users. Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading is a common field of study that presents some administrative and technical difficulties. This article provides a general overview of P2P energy exchange. It discusses how blockchain can improve transparency and overall performance, including the degree of decentralization, scalability, and device reliability. The research is extended to examine unresolved issues and potential directions for P2P blockchain-based energy sharing in the future. In fact, this paper also demonstrates the importance of blockchain in future smart grid activities and its blockchain-based applications. The study also briefly examines the issues associated with blockchain integration, ensuring the decentralized, secure and scalable operation of autonomous electric grids in the future.
M A C L Gunarathna, Rebecca Yang, Sajani Jayasuriya, K Wang · 6 authors
Abstract The involvement of many stakeholders from diverse sectors throughout the distributed solar energy (DSE) project lifecycle and their discrete commitments to the project have lessened the stakeholder understanding in each other’s contribution. Communication between the stakeholders is not continuous and systematic; thus, the project information is not well-communicated for accurate decision making. Therefore, DSE projects have not yet won the complete stakeholder trust and its adoption in the building industry is not yet fully accepted. This study aims at exploring the opportunities for using blockchain technology to reduce/eliminate the trust issues and communication gaps along the DSE lifecycle. The study conducts 50 semi-structured interviews with building and energy stakeholders to identify the issues/ limitations which (1) reduce the stakeholder trust on DSE technologies and applications and (2) generate communication gaps along the DSE project lifecycle. Findings reveal that most of the issues/ limitations occurred due to the unavailability of a common platform for communication and information sharing, unavailability of information, improper record keeping and limited information security. The unique features of blockchain technology such as (1) distributed ledger technology (DLT), (2) smart contracts, (3) token-based access control, and (4) automated consensus and forking can effectively eliminate the identified issues/ limitations by providing (1) information accuracy and reliability, (2) information security, (3) open access to project information, (4) systematic record keeping and (5) proper governance of the system. The outcome of this study provides a systematic approach to increase the quality of communication in DSE projects design and management.
Advances in monitoring, sensing, control, and communication allow the use of Smart Grid. It enables smart metering applications, substation event and alarm updates, vehicle-tovehicle (V2V), and vehicle-to-network (V2G) energy transactions, among others. However, the data used is sensitive and communication between entities must be reliable and secure. For this, the Internet uses the Public Key Infrastructure (ICP) in which the communicating parties must have a digital certificate issued by a certification authority (CA). However, it has a centralized architecture with a single point of failure. An alternative to this is the use of distributed technologies and one that stands out is Blockchain. It is a technology that allows trusted communication between untrusted entities without a centralized third party. Also, Blockchain is a chronological sequence of blocks linked through the hash of each one. This characteristic ensures data integrity and immutability. Therefore, Blockchain is a powerful technology for recording data like access control rules. This work utilizes Blockchain to provide a framework applying the Smart Contract concept for a Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) system. Also, it uses the framework Truffle to test the Smart Contract functionalities and presents a study case of the proposal (KIM et al., 2019) together with this work. In counterpart to the related works, this work does not have a single-point of failure.
Blockchain is a special technology for peer-to-peer (P2P) trading platforms, which uses decentralized storage to record all transaction data. Blockchain was first used in 2009 in the infrastructure of the financial sector of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. Recently, further applications have evolved in this area to provide decentralized transaction storage by employing innovative mechanisms that enable decentralized operation. This mechanism is called a smart contract that operates based on individually defined rules (e.g., quality, quantity, and price specifications) that enable an independent matching of market players at the distribution level on the supplier side and their potential customers and end-users as well as prosumers. In this article, in addition to introducing the concept of Blockchain, the way this cutting-edge technology deals with different agents in the energy sector and markets and its impact on the operation performance of the electricity and energy industry have been examined. Thus, merging other emerging technologies and platforms, such as big data analysis, the Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI) with Blockchain, can solve many practical open challenges in smart electrical grids and the energy domain. This article delves into the impacts of integrating these platforms to boost the interoperability between different components and enhance the liquidity of markets.
Laurenţiu Mihai Ionescu, Alin Gheorghita Mazare, N. Ionescu, A.I. Lita
Monitoring current consumption in a smart grid involves, along with the acquisition of power consumption in different nodes of the network (through current and voltage sensors), the transmission of measured values through a local network to a central server. From a security point of view, communications between nodes and the central server are exposed. Also, the central server may be exposed to catastrophic attacks or faults that lead to data loss. The solution proposed by us in this paper, uses a private blockchain network and smart contracts based on Ethereum for the transmission of data from nodes. The advantages are: data integrity is ensured, synchronization between nodes as well as ensuring data protection by multiplying them on all nodes. The disadvantage would seem to be related to the increase in energy consumption that each blockchain node involves. As will be presented in the paper, this disadvantage will be removed by its own blockchain solution in which the consensus algorithm is adapted to low power consumption. Together with the own archiving method presented in the article, the solution is an efficient one, implementable at the level of nodes. Data will be presented in comparative analyzes with classic server solutions.
Digitization in the power industry enables wide connectivity among multiple new entrants such as DERs, prosumers, and P2P counterparts within or outside the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). The use of DLT to improve resilience in the power grid has growing support, but new technology provides new opportunities for adversaries to cause harm. This work completed by the Cybersecurity focused task force of IEEE SA P2418.5 evaluates the potential risks by applying the MITRE ATT&CK ICS matrix to the DLT Engineering and Cybersecurity Stack designed for power systems applications.
Jingya Dong, Chunhe Song, Tao Zhang, Youjun Hu · 6 authors
Blockchain technology provides the possibility for the realization of decentralized energy trading. However, the blockchain confronts privacy risks and efficiency issues, which hinder its application in energy trading. In this paper, to solve this problem, we propose an efficient and privacy-preserving decentralized energy trading scheme in a blockchain environment. We propose an account mapping algorithm to solve the privacy attack problem. We propose a new transaction processing method, which can protect private data and improve execution efficiency by two-layer transaction processing. Finally, we verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme for privacy protection and trading efficiency of decentralized energy transactions through experiments.