GRIDCHAIN: AN AUDITABLE BLOCKCHAIN FOR SMART GRID DATA INTEGRITY AND IMMUTABILITY
- InfoBeyond Technology LLC
Power grid data are generated from the sensor endpoints (i.e., field devices) and they have to securely delivered and consumed over the power grid system, such as for grid monitoring and control, utility bill, and power trading. However, current power grid systems are lack of interoperability among loads from multiple vendors. Proprietary software and communication interfaces result in a high Balance of System (BoS) for grid-tied systems. It also causes incapability of data sharing across the grid devices from different vendors, due to the diversity of legacy communication protocols. Users have to dump those devices and buy new ones from a single vendor in order to update and expand the energy utility, resulting in a substantial investment of extra time, money and human labor. OpenFMB is a solution that well addresses the interoperability issue in the power grid by enabling distributed intelligence and grid field device interoperability. It offers ease of operation and reduced BoS costs. With OpenFMB, a smart grid can be updated and expanded its utility without system overhauls. The power grid data can be delivered with less communication latency, response time, and strength of encryption. On the other hand, OpenFMB is a standard only covering the grid network. It is unable to interoperate with an external blockchain in which a grid business (e.g., grid energy trading, commissioning) could be deployed. OpenFMB and blockchain follow different data security mechanism and there are no mutual trustworthy. OpenFMB security (e.g., DDS (Data Distribution Service) security) is unable to extend into a blockchain as the blockchain is not a part of a grid system. It is a critical issue of how the grid data can be fed into a blockchain, or vice versa, with data integrity and immutability. In addition to data security, a blockchain for a power grid system presents additional challenges, such as operational scalability and transaction efficiency in support of a large power grid network. In this proposal, InfoBeyond advocates Gridchain: An Auditable Blockchain for Smart Grid Data Integrity and Immutability for securely integrating OpenFMB and blockchain for grid business. Specifically, it advocates blockchain technology to achieve grid data integrity and immutability across the power grid and blockchain business. At first, a DFA (Data Feeding Authentication) Interface between OpenFMB and blockchain is proposed for DFA that acts a security bridge that integrates OpenFMB to retrieve the data of interests from endpoints and securely feed to the blockchain as data contracts. It also provides a means for blockchain data (e.g., a controlling message to an OpenFMB node) to be securely delivered to a targeted OpenFMB node with authenticity such that the OpenFMB business can be executed in the grid properly. Secondly, Gridchain is designed to inherit different blockchains (e.g., Hyperledger and Ethereum) such that it can support different OpenFMB business requirements (e.g., public or private). In addition, it develops a two-layer Ethereum structure (e.g., Macro and Micro Contracts) to achieve high throughput transactions in support of a large-scale grid network. Gridchain has the same grade of scalability as OpenFMB. Thirdly, Blockchain smart contracts developed by business users are subjected to various vulnerabilities (e.g., Gasless). Auditor is an online auditing module to add an additional security layer to the top of the build-in blockchain security. It analyzes the contracts to detect blockchain misbehaviors from attackers. Gridchain is innovative for power grid systems to improve grid security and resilience against cybersecurity attacks. Its innovations are two-fold. At first, it is the first attempt that enables the grid data generated at endpoints are trustworthily fed into the blockchain ecosystem, and vice versa. This offers OpenFMB and blockchain interoperability. Secondly, it is the first attempt that uses auditing technology to prevent misbehavior (e.g., mishandling smart contracts) caused by attackers. Further, Gridchain is designed as a software system to support data security in a large-scale OpenFMB system. Gridchain fills out the technical gap of interoperability between smart grid and blockchain in support of blockchain-enabled smart grid business. It allows securely feeding data from power grids (e.g., the energy transferred) to energy business in a blockchain (e.g., transactions of the purchase), and vice versa, where the power grid and the business are separately operated in different networks. Equally importantly, Gridchain addresses the urgent requirements of national power systems to improve grid security and resilience against cybersecurity attacks. Gridchain provides a new method for grid data protection of integrity and immutability to a new level by taking advantage of blockchain technology. On the other hand, Gridchain improves the smart grid service security that protects the service availability and efficiency. It promotes economical and clean energy distribution that securely integrates communication, advanced control methods, and decision support using grid data. Further, the proposed approach will reduce the cost by fewer system operators to manage the smart grid. It can reduce the continuous cost incurred with respect to security protocol upgrades within the system. Human error can be greatly eliminated as the transactions are initiated using self-enforced grid contracts.
- Research Organization:
- InfoBeyond Technology LLC
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0019888
- OSTI ID:
- 1616023
- Type / Phase:
- SBIR (Phase I)
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-InfoBeyond-19888; 5023710907
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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