Encryption key management for secure communication in smart advanced metering infrastructures

Smart grid technology can improve environmental sustainability and increase the efficiency of energy management. Because of these important benefits, conventional power grid systems are being replaced with new, advanced smart grid systems utilizing Advanced Metering Infrastructures (AMIs). These smart grid systems rely on current information and communication technology (ICT) to provide enhanced services to both users and utility companies. However, the increased use of ICT makes smart grid systems vulnerable to cyber-attacks, such as spoofing, eavesdropping and man-in-the-middle attacks. A major security concern is related to secure data transmission between the smart meters and the utility. Encryption techniques are typically used for such purpose. However the deployment of encryption techniques in an AMI requires efficient and scalable approaches for managing encryption keys. In this paper, we propose an efficient encryption key management mechanism for end-to-end security in the AMI. By applying certificateless public key cryptography for smart meter key management, our approach eliminates certificate management overhead at the utility. Moreover, our mechanism is practical, because it does not require any extra hardware for authentication of the smart meters.