Mikail Mohammed Salim, Alowonou Kowovi Comivi, Tojimurotov Nurbek, Heejae Park · 5 authors
Resource constraints in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) result in brute-force attacks, transforming them into a botnet to launch Distributed Denial of Service Attacks. The delayed detection of botnet formation presents challenges in controlling the spread of malicious scripts in other devices and increases the probability of a high-volume cyberattack. In this paper, we propose a secure Blockchain-enabled Digital Framework for the early detection of Bot formation in a Smart Factory environment. A Digital Twin (DT) is designed for a group of devices on the edge layer to collect device data and inspect packet headers using Deep Learning for connections with external unique IP addresses with open connections. Data are synchronized between the DT and a Packet Auditor (PA) for detecting corrupt device data transmission. Smart Contracts authenticate the DT and PA, ensuring malicious nodes do not participate in data synchronization. Botnet spread is prevented using DT certificate revocation. A comparative analysis of the proposed framework with existing studies demonstrates that the synchronization of data between the DT and PA ensures data integrity for the Botnet detection model training. Data privacy is maintained by inspecting only Packet headers, thereby not requiring the decryption of encrypted data.
Gary Hahn, Aaron Werth, Emilio C. Piesciorovsky, William Monday · 7 authors
This report summarizes the design and pilot demonstration of a framework called Grid Guard that was created to provide increased data and device trustworthiness to electric grid devices by leveraging distributed ledger technology (DLT), specifically blockchain. Grid Guard contains a combination of core cryptographic methods such as the secure hash algorithm (SHA), and asymmetric cryptography, private permissioned blockchain, baselining configuration data, consensus algorithm (Raft) and the Hyperledger Fabric (HLF) framework. The system implements a low energy, fast, and robust enhancement to system trustworthiness within and across electric grid systems such as substations, control centers and metering infrastructures.Blockchain is a distributed database structured that provides a practically unalterable (immutable) timeline of stored transactions. By relying on hashing and the Raft consensus algorithm, if an entity tries to illegitimately alter a record at one instance of the database the other ledger nodes are not altered. They work to cross-reference each other and easily locate any incorrectly added data and remove it. The bulk raw data is stored in an off-chain storage (outside of the blockchain ledger) and a hash of this baseline data is stored in the Blockchain ledger via hashing windows of time-series and configuration data, after aggregation and filtering. The bulk off-chain data repository is then considered to be trust-anchored using the hashes stored in the blockchain. To secure the electric grid testbed devices and data, device configuration baselines were compared to those baselines that had been previously stored in the ledger. Statistical baselines for device configurations, network communication patterns, and high-speed sensor data are calculated and then stored off-chain and hashes stored in the ledger. Measurements such as three-phase voltage and current, frequency, breaker status, protection scheme settings, network configuration settings (and other device configuration artifacts) and network traffic features (packet interarrival times) are compared every minute or other selected time windows.During phase 1 of the Grid Guard DLT project different DLT technologies were studies, and an assessment was performed on DLT technology vulnerabilities, uses, and key characteristics. DLT consensus protocols were studies (e.g., RAFT, named after Reliable, Replicated, Redundant, And Fault-Tolerant). Also, cryptography, public, private and permissioned or permissionless systems were assessed. Grid Guard implements a permissioned private DLT. Consensus algorithm selection and choice of DLT implementation depended heavily on the use-case. For this use-case, parameters were selected to measure performance and existing tools for assessment. Benchmarking was performed theoretically and practically. During phase 2 hashed transactions/blocks were inserted into the ledger every second.During phase 2 of the Grid Guard DLT project, a prototype framework was developed and demonstrated for attestation of critical substation devices and data using precision timing systems that use PTP and IRIG-B protocols) on a testbed of operational devices that emulated a distribution substation, control center, and power metering infrastructure using real Operational Technology (OT). The testbed includes OT devices such as protective relays, human machine interfaces (HMI), and power meters. To determine when to collect and compare system and network baselines, an initial examination of an anomaly detection capability to identify malicious manipulation of data streams was conducted. The resulting anomaly detection was demonstrated in a set of experiments and leveraged to trigger device artifact attestation checks. Attestation checks occur against device configuration baselines when compared with the immutable blockchain-stored baselines, which provided a cryptographically supported means by which to store baselines.The electrical substation-grid testbed was created to test the Grid Guard framework. The testbed emulates the operations of a portion of a power grid and SCADA systems as closely as possible. The testbed integrates real protocols, mainly IEC 61850 standard protocols, such as the Sampled Value (SV) and the GOOSE protocols. The testbed also supports DNP3 and other layer 2 and layer 3 protocols such as Telnet, SSH, SFTP/FTP and other proprietary protocols needed to connect to industrial control system equipment. The testbed emulates real power conditions using the OpalRT hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) device which can create fault situations that cannot be easily tested on real systems. The electrical substation-grid testbed was created using real measurement, communication, and protection devices that electrical utilities commonly use. The goal is to have the same conditions that could be observed in an operational power grid or electrical substation. The objective was to study the impact of faults and cyber-events at an
Nahida Islam, Md. Sazzadur Rahman, Imtiaz Mahmud, Md. Nur Amin Sifat · 5 authors
The world is facing an urgent need to provide secure communication and data access control in advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) because conventional cryptographic key management and authentication protocols are at stake. The cryptography schemes entirely rely on trusted third parties (TTPs), leading to a single point of failure and increasing network overhead. In response to this inefficiency and security compromise, this study proposes a blockchain-enabled distributed AMI secure communication scheme. In the proposed work, smart contract (SC), an integrated part of the blockchain, is programmed to substitute traditional TTP-based transaction systems, which operate in a distributed, immutable, and trustworthy manner. In this paper, we implemented practical Byzantine fault tolerance (PBFT) consensus algorithm and Hyperledger Fabric (HLF) blockchain platform to ensure Byzantine fault tolerance in the blockchain transaction. Performance analysis shows that the proposed BC-AMI scheme has the advantage of incurring the least amount of communication and time costs compared with similar studies while ensuring security against some common cyber-attacks.
Jasrin Shiddike, Afsana Ahmed, Mohammad Farshid, Prapty Das Oaishe
For Smart Grid management, people rely on Trusted Third Party (TTP) administration-based Centralized systems, which lack security, faith, immutability, and clarity. This paper proposes a Smart Grid management system based on Blockchain and IoT, taking advantage of the ’Ethereum server’ capabilities to solve these problems. To control access privileges, a smart contract is used, and a customized version of IPFS software is used to enforce the established access-control list. To secure Grid management, an application framework for a secure decentralized smart Grid system is proposed using Ethereum and IoT. Every transaction was hashed using Ethereum Server, and identities were authenticated using Metamask to cryptographically recognize account ownership in the Blockchain system. In the private Ethereum network, a gas consumption-based outcome analysis is performed. It achieves transparency, security-regulated access, and process quality, all of which indicate that this activity is more effective.
The conventional electrical grid is undergoing substantial growth for reliable grid operation and for more efficient and sustainable energy use. The traditional grid is now metamorphosing into a smart grid (SG) that incorporates a diverse, heterogeneous blend of operating measures such as smart appliances, meters, and renewable energy resources. With better efficient results and dependability, the SG can be described as a modern electric power grid architecture. The SG is one of the greatest potential advances as a promising solution for the energy crisis. However, it is complex and its decentralization could be of tremendous benefit. Moreover, digitalization and integration of a large number of growing connections make it a target of cyber-attacks. In this sense, blockchain is a promising SG paradigm solution that offers several excellent features. There has been considerable effort put into using blockchains in the smart grid for its decentralization and enhanced cybersecurity; however, it has not been thoroughly studied in both application and architectural perspectives. An in-depth study was conducted on blockchain-enabled SG applications. Blockchain architectures for various applications, such as the synchrophasor applications, electric vehicles, energy management systems, etc., were proposed. The purpose of this article is to provide directions for future research efforts aimed at secure and decentralized SG applications using blockchain.
The existing power grid and smart cities enable two-way communications, and the great experience is to increase the reliability, budget, and continuity of production as well as efficiency addressed, transmission and distribution of electricity from the stake to the smart grid implementation. However, connectivity and management issues need to be addressed before you can take full advantage of the smart grid. Furthermore, how to describe the challenges security of the use of grid resources and available energy, how to ensure reliability and safety, and how to provide the capability to be considered when the data communication increase on smart grid systems. In this article, some descriptions of the smart grid, like communications, response and demand, and mainly security, are discussed. blockchain and the integration issues of distributed energy sources are also taking place.
The electricity sector is facing the dual challenge of supporting increasing level of demand electrification while substantially reducing its carbon footprint. Among electricity demands, the energy consumption of cryptocurrency mining data centers has witnessed significant growth worldwide. If well-coordinated, these data centers could be tailor-designed to aggressively absorb the increasing uncertainties of energy supply and, in turn, provide valuable grid-level services in the electricity market. In this paper, we study the impact of integrating new cryptocurrency mining loads into Texas power grid and the potential profit of utilizing demand flexibility from cryptocurrency mining facilities in the electricity market. We investigate different demand response programs available for data centers and quantify the annual profit of cryptocurrency mining units participating in these programs. We perform our simulations using a synthetic 2000 bus ERCOT grid model, along with added cryptocurrency mining loads on top of the real-world demand profiles in Texas. Our preliminary results show that depending on the size and location of these new loads, we observe different impacts on the ERCOT electricity market, where they could increase the electricity prices and incur more fluctuations in a highly non-uniform manner.
Transactive Energy Systems (TES) represent a new approach to achieve an optimal utilisation of distributed energy resources (DER) as well as realising a better integration of prosumers. As transactive participants, producers, consumers and prosumers take part in achieving a dynamic and efficient grid operation based on economic and control mechanisms. A key challenge of realising TES is to enable a decentralised structure. With the gaining popularity of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) and especially Blockchain in the year 2017, this trend has also gained traction in the field of TES to build a decentralised system. However, even before the aforementioned DLT approaches from 2017 onwards, there have been functioning TES implementations that are not based on DLT. It is also important to note that with all the advantages that the use of DLT brings, there are also new challenges linked with. The objective of this paper is to analyse, whether the use of DLT for TES is scientifically plausible or can be identified as a temporal hype. At first, the foundations of TES as well as the basic principles of using DLT for TES are being presented. Furthermore, different implementations of TES with and without the use of DLT are being shown. On this basis a comparative analysis of regular TES as well as TES based on DLT is executed. Within this framework an assessment of the effectiveness of using DLT for TES is formed.
Deep integration of variable renewable energy sources in electrical power systems requires widespread use of digital technologies and novel citizen-oriented business models. The emergence of distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) has spurred the development of pilot projects and the assessment of the opportunities for the application of DLTs in the energy sector. In this paper, we examine DLTs considering their key features and applications in the energy sector, with a focus on their potential use in energy communities. As a case study, we present the pilot site in the city of Križevci in Croatia, where an energy community is being established. Based on this case, we assess the potential use cases, advantages, and possible drawbacks in the application of DLTs in comparison with the business-as-usual non-DLT solutions.
Ameni Boumaiza, Mohd Zamri Che Wanik, Antonio Sanfilippo
This paper describes the development of a co-simulation of electricity distribution networks and blockchain-based for a transactive energy marketplace (TEM) framework for housing community. The venue used in this work as case study is the Education City Community Housing ECCH located in Doha, Qatar. First, we process the grid data for the purpose of modeling transactive energy systems. Second, we model the ECCH power network to build a digital twin model that will constitute the physical layer of a decentralized energy trading platform based on the blockchain technology. The blockchain interacts with the community grid to exchange electricity. The decentralized application was tested at a real-world Qatari microgrid using Hyperledger Fabric blockchain framework, to show the end to end connectivity for prosumers in a residential microgrid setting.
Kimia Honari, Xiaotian Zhou, Sara Rouhani, Scott Dick · 7 authors
Blockchain technologies are one possible avenue for increasing the resilience of the Smart Grid, by decentralizing the monitoring and control of system-level objectives such as voltage stability protection. They furthermore offer benefits in data immutability and traceability, as blockchains are cryptographically secured. However, the performance of blockchain-based systems in real-time grid monitoring and control has never been empirically tested. This study proposes implementing a decentralized voltage stability algorithm using blockchain-based smart contracts, as a testbed for evaluating the performance of blockchains in real-time control. We furthermore investigate sharding mechanisms as a means of improving the system's scalability with fixed computing resources. We implement our models as a proof-of-concept prototype system using Hyperledger Fabric as our blockchain platform, the Matpower library in MATLAB as our power system simulator, and Hyperledger Caliper as our performance evaluation tool. We found that sharding does indeed lead to a substantial improvement in system scalability for this domain, measured by both transaction success rates and transaction latency.
In Smart Grid (SG), Transactive Energy Management (TEM) is one of the most promising approaches to boost consumer participation in energy generation, energy management, and establishing decentralized energy market models using Peer-to-Peer (P2P). In P2P, a prosumer produces electric energy at their place using Renewable Energy Resources (RES) such as solar energy, wind energy, etc. Then, this generated energy is traded with consumers (who need the energy) in a nearby locality. P2P facilitates energy exchange in localized micro-energy markets of the TEM system. Such decentralized P2P energy management could cater to diverse prosumers and utility business models. However, the existing P2P approaches suffer from several issues such as single-point-of-failure, network bandwidth, scalability, trust, and security issues. To handle the aforementioned issues, this paper proposes a Decentralized and Transparent P2P Energy Trading (DT-P2PET) scheme using blockchain. The proposed DT-P2PET scheme aims to reduce the grid’s energy generation and management burden while also increasing profit for both consumers and prosumers through a dynamic pricing mechanism. The DT-P2PET scheme uses Ethereum-blockchain-based Smart Contracts (SCs) and InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) for the P2P energy trading. Furthermore, a recommender mechanism is also introduced in this study to increase the number of prosumers. The Ethereum SCs are designed and deployed to perform P2P in real time in the proposed DT-P2PET scheme. The DT-P2PET scheme is evaluated based on the various parameters such as profit generation (for prosumer and consumer both), data storage cost, network bandwidth, and data transfer rate in contrast to the existing approaches.
With the continuous development of the Internet of Energy, the access of a large number of distributed renewable energy has caused difficulties in energy management. The traditional energy management mode cannot meet the needs of existing energy management and trading. Therefore, this paper proposes an integrated energy management platform based on blockchain, which allows multiple decentralized energy management systems to conduct unified identity authentication. At the same time, an editable and verifiable anonymous authentication (EVAA) scheme integrating blockchain in the Internet of Energy is designed, which combines the idea of chameleon hash (CH) and the algorithm of elliptic curve encryption (ECC) to realize the dual identity authentication of user information. Finally, the generated certificate is stored in the chain through blockchain consensus. The scheme is mainly constructed using multiple secure cryptographic algorithms, which combine the advantages of blockchain for information authentication. Thus, it can accomplish user cross-system authentication and transaction, and achieve more secure editable anonymous identity authentication through the algorithm performance test, compared with the existing similar schemes under the unified test standard. This paper not only ensures the operation efficiency, but also reflects the obvious advantage of realizing higher intensity security performance.
Love it or loathe it, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are here to stay. Yet do you know how crypto is "manufactured"? It turns out to be a very noisy operation! Hundreds, if not thousands of powerful computer servers and processors are needed to solve the vexing Bitcoin mining algorithms. And those computers generate heat, a lot of heat (!), that must be cooled and ventilated, thus creating noise. This paper will describe the noise assessment and control efforts performed on a major Bitcoin mining operation in Tennessee. Megawatts of power are needed to support the operations, and the ventilation noise was causing significant community complaints that threatened to shut down the mining operation. Fortunately, application of some traditional and custom-made noise mitigation measures solved the noise problem and allowed the mining operation to proceed around the clock. At the time of writing this abstract, 1 Bitcoin = $46,500.
Yue Zhou, Andrei Nicolas Manea, Weiqi Hua, Jianzhong Wu · 7 authors
In the transition to a society with net-zero carbon emissions, high penetration of distributed renewable power generation and large-scale electrification of transportation and heat are driving the conventional distribution network operators (DNOs) to evolve into distribution system operators (DSOs) that manage distribution networks in a more active and flexible way. As a radical decentralized data management technology, distributed ledger technology (DLT) has the potential to support a trustworthy digital infrastructure facilitating the DNO–DSO transition. Based on a comprehensive review of worldwide research and practice, as well as the engagement of relevant industrial experts, the application of DLT in distribution networks is identified and analyzed in this article. The DLT features and DSO needs are first summarized, and the mapping relationship between them is identified. Detailed DSO functions are identified and classified into five categories (i.e., “planning,” “operation,” “market,” “asset,” and “connection”) with the potential of applying DLT to various DSO functions assessed. Finally, the development of seven key DSO functions with high DLT potential is analyzed and discussed from the technical, legal, and social perspectives, including peer-to-peer energy trading, flexibility market facilitation, electric vehicle charging, network pricing, distributed generation register, data access, and investment planning.
Smart manufacturing systems grow based on multiple demands to predict equipment reliability and quality. To this end, many machine learning techniques are examined. Data security and management are other issues that are important for the industry. The integrated blockchain and cyber-physical systems have been used to protect system transactions from hacking the data during transmission to overcome the above problems. In the private blockchain platform, the blockchain system was implemented. The quality control system was evaluated based on non-linear techniques that are complex and demonstrate the truly positive quality control rate of this system. Similarly, the prediction aspect of fault diagnosis was assessed based on hybrid prediction techniques.
Yaçine Merrad, Mohamed Hadi Habaebi, Siti Fauziah Toha, Md. Rafiqul Islam · 6 authors
Recent advances in control, communication, and management systems, as well as the widespread use of renewable energy sources in homes, have led to the evolution of traditional power grids into smart grids, where passive consumers have become so-called prosumers that feed energy into the grid. On the other hand, the integration of blockchain into the smart grid has enabled the emergence of decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading, where prosumers trade their energy as tokenized assets. Even though this new paradigm benefits both distribution grid operators and end users in many ways. Nevertheless, there is a conflict of interest between the two parties, as on the one hand, prosumers want to maximize their profit, while on the other hand, distribution system operators (DSOs) seek an optimal power flow (OPF) operating point. Due to the complexity of formulating and solving OPF problems in the presence of renewable energy sources, researchers have focused on mathematical modeling and effective solution algorithms for such optimization problems. However, the control of power generation according to a defined OPF solution is still based on centralized control and management units owned by the DSO. In this paper, we propose a novel, fully decentralized architecture for an OPF-based demand response management system that uses smart contracts to force generators to comply without the need for a central authority or hardware.
Muhammad Sajid Farooq, Safiullah Khan, Abdur Rehman, Sagheer Abbas · 6 authors
Security and privacy in the Internet of Things (IoT) other significant challenges, primarily because of the vast scale and deployment of IoT networks. Blockchain-based solutions support decentralized protection and privacy. In this study, a private blockchain-based smart home network architecture for estimating intrusion detection empowered with a Fused Real-Time Sequential Deep Extreme Learning Machine (RTS-DELM) system model is proposed. This study investigates the methodology of RTS-DELM implemented in blockchain-based smart homes to detect any malicious activity. The approach of data fusion and the decision level fusion technique are also implemented to achieve enhanced accuracy. This study examines the numerous key components and features of the smart home network framework more extensively. The Fused RTS-DELM technique achieves a very significant level of stability with a low error rate for any intrusion activity in smart home networks. The simulation findings indicate that this suggested technique successfully optimizes smart home networks for monitoring and detecting harmful or intrusive activities.
Recently, multi-agent systems (MASs) have received attention due to the consideration of distributed optimization and control in blockchain (BC) based energy trading applications. However, due to the dynamic behavior of uncertain and random variables, the coordination and control of MAS are still challenging to attain resilience and dynamicity. Traditional trust systems, which rely on access control and cryptography, cannot deal with dynamic behavior of agents. Furthermore, they are inefficient in addressing the computational overhead of cryptographic primitives. To overcome these limitations, this work proposes a BC-based trusted suite (TS) for MAS to handle privacy and anonymity issues during energy trading in a smart grid (SG). In this work, three objectives are simultaneously achieved: trust, cooperation, and confidentiality. Firstly, the proposed trust system is employed to perform trust credibility of agents based on trust deformation, coherence, and stability. The credibility evaluation is used to determine the dynamic behavior of agents and to detect dishonest agents in the system. Secondly, a tri-tit-for-tat (TTFT) repeated game approach is used to improve the cooperation among agents. The proposed strategy is more forgiving than the existing Di-TFT (DTFT) and TFT techniques. It motivates scammers and deceptive agents to regain their trust by cooperating in three consecutive rounds of a game. Furthermore a proof-of-cooperation (PoC) consensus mechanism is introduced to facilitate agent cooperation in block creation and validation. Thirdly, the publicly verifiable secret sharing (PVSS) technique is introduced to preserve the privacy of the agents. Unlike VSS, PVSS provides the immunity against different types of security threats. Where, the dealer agent maintained the trust, while the verification of the dealer and combiner is maintained within agent-to-agent cooperation. Simulation results show that the devised BTS model is superior to the existing benchmark model such as fuzzy logic trust (FLT) in terms of detecting the cheating and deceptive behavior of agents in the system. Besides, the devised TTFT allows cheating agents to effectively regain the trust if they cooperate thrice in a row as compared to the existing DTFT and TFT strategies. Furthermore, This study analyzes two trust-related attacks: bad-mouthing and on-off. Analysis shows that the proposed system is protected from trust related attacks.
Smart contracts constitute the foundation for blockchain distributed applications. These constructs enable transactions in trustless environments using consensus algorithms and software-controlled verification rules. In the current state of the art, there is a shortage of works on the adaptability of smart contracts, and the re-use of their source code is limited mainly to cloning. The paper discusses the pattern of smart contract design and implementation with the overt declaration of verification rules. The author introduces two advantages of the pattern: Firstly, run-time reconfigurability of the list of smart contract verification rules to adjust for various transaction types. Secondly, the re-use of verification rules between different configurations of the smart contract, and among diverse smart contracts. The paper uses blockchain platform-independent stereotypes from a dedicated Unified Modeling Language (UML) profile for designing smart contracts and verification rules. The implementation of the pattern is developed in object-oriented Java language. The pattern exploits polymorphism and controls inheritance by using sealed classes with permission for specialization only for selected final ones. Thus, the pattern ensures two recently highly desired properties in smart contract design and development: re-use and security. Moreover, the declared verification rules list facilitates test automation and reduces test preparation effort due to the re-use of test classes among smart contract configurations. The pattern usage is illustrated in the example of renewable energy exchange within the prosumers community and amid various communities.