Byzantine fault tolerance for real time price in hierarchical smart grid communication infrastructure

Abstract

The electrical grid uses intelligent electronic devices, communication technologies, distributed energy resources, energy storage, and smart appliances in order to make smart grid which provides reliability and power quality. In smart grid, Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) provides a two-way communication system between utilities and smart meters, as well as the ability to modify consumer demand profiles. Through AMI, they get instantaneous information about aggregated demand and implement various demand response program to impose restriction on electricity consumption. Demand Response program offers price based demand response. The Price based demand response includes real-time pricing in which price signals would be released on an hourly basis or for a time slot. The utility center is responsible for communication of price signals to aggregators which is responsible to transfer the price to the set of connected smart meters. Ensuring security and reliability in implementation of real time pricing is a major concern. The communication of real time price may be interrupted due to faulty aggregators. It causes alteration in price signals leading to scaling attack or delay attack. This paper presents a solution aims to secure the system implementing real time pricing against byzantine faults that occur in aggregators due to malicious attacks, software errors, hardware failures, network errors, and operator mistakes.