A new secure and anonymous metering scheme for smart grid communications

Abstract

The smart meter is one of the most important components of the smart grid, which enables bi-directional communication between electric power providers and in-home appliances. However, the fine-grained metering mechanism that reports real-time electricity usage to the provider may result in some privacy and security issues for the owner of the smart meter. In this paper, we propose a new secure and anonymous smart metering scheme based on the technique of direct anonymous attestation and identity-based signatures. We utilize the trusted platform module to realize the tamper resistance of the smart meter. Moreover, our scheme is able to detect malfunctioning meters in which data is reported more than once in a time period. Finally, the performance and security results show that our proposed scheme is efficient and satisfies the security requirements of the smart grid communication system.