Distributed meter data aggregation framework based on Blockchain and homomorphic encryption

Abstract

A significant progress in modern power grids is witnessed by the tendency of becoming complex cyber-physical systems. As a fundamental physical infrastructure, smart meter in the demand side provides real-time energy consumption information to the utility. However, ensuring information security and privacy in the meter data aggregation process is a non-trivial task. This study proposes a distributed, privacy-preserving, and secure meter data aggregation framework, backed up by Blockchain and homomorphic encryption (HE) technologies. Meter data are aggregated and verified by a hierarchical Blockchain system, in which the consensus mechanism is supported by the practical Byzantine fault tolerance algorithm. On the top of the Blockchain system, HE technology is used to protect the privacy of individual meter data items during the aggregation process. Performance analysis is conducted to validate the proposed method.

Keywords

• smart power grids
• power engineering computing
• fault tolerant computing
• smart meters
• power grids
• fault tolerance
• power system security
• data privacy
• cryptography
• data aggregation
• distributed meter data aggregation framework
• homomorphic encryption
• modern power grids
• complex cyber-physical systems
• fundamental physical infrastructure
• smart meter
• real-time energy consumption information
• information security
• meter data aggregation process
• distributed privacy-preserving
• secure meter data
• hierarchical Blockchain system
• individual meter data items
• Byzantine fault tolerance algorithm