Privacy-Preserving Smart Metering with Authentication in a Smart Grid

Applied Sciences

Jun Beom Hur³  Dong Young Koo¹  Young Joo Shin² 

[1] Department of Computer Science, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu 34141, Korea; E-Mail:;National Security Research Institute, 1559 Yuseongdae-ro, Yuseong-gu 34044, Korea;Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Korea University, 145 Anam-ro, Seongbuk-gu 02841, Korea; E-Mail:

关键词: smart grid;    smart metering;    privacy;    security;    data aggregation;   

DOI  :  10.3390/app5041503

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The traditional security objectives of smart grids have been availability, integrity, and confidentiality. However, as the grids incorporate smart metering and load management, user and corporate privacy is increasingly becoming an issue in smart grid networks. Although transmitting current power consumption levels to the supplier or utility from each smart meter at short intervals has an advantage for the electricity supplier’s planning and management purposes, it threatens user privacy by disclosing fine-grained consumption data and usage behavior to utility providers. In this study, we propose a distributed incremental data aggregation scheme where all smart meters on an aggregation path are involved in routing the data from the source meter to the collection unit. User privacy is preserved by symmetric homomorphic encryption, which allows smart meters to participate in the aggregation without seeing any intermediate or final result. Aggregated data is further integrated with an aggregate signature to achieve data integrity and smart meter authentication in such a way that dishonest or fake smart meters cannot falsify data en route. Only the collection unit can obtain the aggregated data and verify its integrity while the individual plain data are not exposed to the collection unit. Therefore, user privacy and security are improved for the smart metering in a smart grid network.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.