Gary Hahn, Emilio C. Piesciorovsky, Raymond Borges Hink, Aaron Werth
Modern electrical grids face growing stability risks from customer-owned generators, especially at points of common couplings (PCCs). Disruptive behavior from power-electronic sources can cause protective relays to isolate problematic generators, making measurement integrity critical. This article presents a distributed ledger technology (DLT) approach that uses smart contracts to evaluate PCC voltage measurements and trigger backup breaker operations. The approach is framed as a verifiable, multi-organization attestation and audit layer, not as a real-time control security mechanism. In the proposed architecture, voltage measurements from a hardware protective relay are anchored on a DLT through the Cyber Grid Guard (CGG) system for attestation by both the grid utility and customer-owned generator. A Voltage Service Limits (VSLs) smart contract evaluates the on-chain measurements against allowable phase-voltage limits derived from the ANSI C84.1 standard. The framework is validated in a hardware-relay-in-the-loop test bed under sustained-undervoltage, sustained-overvoltage, and transient line-to-line fault scenarios. The results show that the VSL smart contract can process these measurements and issue backup breaker actions consistent with the defined service-limit criteria, demonstrating the DLT potential as a verifiable audit layer at the PCC that complements primary protection.
Guilin Guan, Zhou Wg, Hongtao Xie, Yang Cao ¡ 6 authors
The rapid advancement of big data and cloud computing technologies has elevated the importance of data transmission consistency verification in scenarios such as distributed storage, data backup, and content delivery networks. Traditional verification methods, including hash-based checks and digital signatures, inherently require access to raw data for computation and comparison. This dependency introduces risks of original data leakage and imposes substantial computational overhead in high-concurrency or large-scale data environments. Zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology offers a promising alternative by enabling a prover to demonstrate the validity of a statement to a verifier without disclosing any supplementary information. However, conventional ZKP schemes, particularly interactive ones, often suffer from complex communication rounds and significant computational burdens, rendering them unsuitable for data transmission scenarios demanding high real-time performance. This paper proposes a Lightweight Non-interactive Zero-Knowledge Proof (L-NIZK) protocol specifically designed for secure and efficient data transmission consistency verification. The protocol employs a data-blocking strategy combined with a Merkle tree structure and integrates an enhanced Pedersen commitment scheme with elliptic curve cryptography to achieve non-interactive and computationally efficient consistency proofs. A formal security analysis demonstrates that the proposed scheme satisfies completeness, soundness, and zero-knowledge properties under the random oracle model. Comprehensive performance evaluations indicate that the L-NIZK protocol surpasses existing mainstream solutions in proof generation time, verification time, and communication overhead, establishing its suitability for large-scale, high-concurrency data transmission environments.
Hailong Zhang, Hong Zhao, Qiannan Chen, Chong Sun ¡ 12 authors
Despite growing blockchain adoption in energy markets, its integration into critical operational functions â particularly relay protectionâ remains limited. Existing solutions fail to meet the stringent requirements of cryptographic auditability, cross-domain coordination, and configuration integrity in hierarchical grid architectures. To address this gap, we propose a three-tier blockchain-based information architecture for relay protection, featuring hybrid PoA+PBFT consensus (1.8 s finality), zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) for privacy-preserving setting verification, and smart contracts for tamper-evident logging. Evaluated on a Hyperledger Fabric v2.5 testbed across provincial, municipal, and substation tiers, the system achieves 40.2% faster hierarchical synchronization and 100% integrity of operation records. While unsuitable for sub-100 ms tripping, the architecture excels in non-real-time workflows such as setting management, fault archiving, and collaborative diagnosticsâ laying the foundation for secure, auditable, and interoperable protection systems.
Paul Michael Custodio, Made Adi Paramartha Putra, JaeâMin Lee, DongâSeong Kim
Transmission lines experience the most faults out of all elements in the smart grid. Identifying the type of fault and where it occurs allow for faster response time and higher reliability for the overall system, however smart grids also experience cyber-physical attacks on data security. This study develops TLFed, a federated learning-based fault location and classification algorithm, utilizing 1-dimensional convolutional neural network (1D-CNN) and long-short term memory (LSTM) for the local client system architecture. With the use of TLFed, the system data are decentralized increasing security. The performance of TLFed is evaluated on accuracy, precision, recall, f1-score, and time-cost and is compared to a centralized set-up. The results of the evaluation show that TLFed's fault location and detection inference have relatively high performance with relatively cheap time-cost. Future works of this research aims for blockchain integration and smart contract deployment.
Emilio C. Piesciorovsky, Raymond Borges Hink, Aaron Werth, Gary Hahn ¡ 6 authors
Electrical utility substations are wired with intelligent electronic devices (IEDs), such as protective relays, power meters, and communication switches. Substation engineers commission these IEDs to assess the appropriate measurements for monitoring, control, power system protection, and communication applications. Like real electrical utility substations, complex electrical substation grid testbeds (ESGTs) need to be assessed for measuring current and voltage signals in monitoring, power system protection, control (synchro check), and communication applications that are limited by small-measurement percentage errors. In the process of setting an ESGT with real-time simulators and IEDs in the loop, protective relays, power meters, and communication devices must be commissioned before running experiments. In this study, an ESGT with IEDs and distributed ledger technology was developed. The ESGT with a real-time simulator and IEDs in the loop was satisfactorily assessed and commissioned. The commissioning and problem-solving tasks of the testbed are described to define a method with flowcharts to assess possible troubleshooting in ESGTs. This method was based on comparing the simulations versus IED measurements for the phase current and voltage magnitudes, three-phase phasor diagrams, breaker states, protective relay times with selectivity coordination at electrical faults, communication data points, and time-stamp sources.