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A secure and efficient cryptography-based data exchange scheme for the smart grid based on homomorphic encryption is investigated in this work. Public key cryptography has been proposed as the main tool to ensure the security of a smart grid [1]. We first examine the shortcomings of conventional public key cryptography to motivate our current study. For the uplink communication (i.e. from customers to the utility) in the proposed scheme, smart meters homomorphically encrypt privacy-sensitive customer data before sending them over the grid. To prevent message forgery, a simple authentication scheme is designed sepcifically for uplink communication. For the downlink communication (i.e. from the utility to customers), the utility transmits the signed control messages to customers using digital signatures to ensure that messages from utilities are not tampered. For the data exchange scheme, we propose a practical cryptosystem based on a partially homomorphic encryption algorithm. The proposed solution has several appealing features such as strengthened security, high efficiency and user privacy preservation.

A survey on smart grid communication systemmiles h.f. wen 1 , ka-cheong leung 1 , victor o.k. li 1 , xingze he 2 and c.-c. jay kuo 2Concerns with global warming prompted many governments to mandate increased proportion of electricity generation from renewable sources. This, together with the desire to have more efficient and secure power generation and distribution, has driven research in the next-generation power grid, namely, the smart grid. Through integrating advanced information and communication technologies with power electronic and electric power technologies, smart grid will be highly reliable, efficient, and environmental-friendly. A key component of smart grid is the communication system. This paper explores the design goals and functions of the smart grid communication system, followed by an in-depth investigation on the communication requirements. Discussions on some of the recent developments related to smart grid communication systems are also introduced.

In this paper, we propose an efficient distortion-based privacy-preserving metering scheme that protects an individual customer's privacy and provides the complete power consumption distribution curve of a multitude of customers without privacy invasion. In the proposed scheme, a random noise is purposely introduced to distort customers' power consumption data at the smart meter so that data recovery becomes infeasible. Using the power consumption data and prior knowledge about added random noise, we develop an efficient algorithm for power consumption distribution reconstruction needed for power demand analysis and prediction. As a complete solution, our scheme also supports a privacy-preserving billing service. Using experimental results from real world single household power consumption data set and synthesized data of a large number of households, we demonstrate that the proposed scheme is robust against known attacks. Since it does not demand new facilities on existing smart grids, the proposed scheme offers a practical solution.

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