RETINA: Distributed and secure trust management for smart grid applications and energy trading

Abstract

The rapid adoption of smart grids demands robust security and efficiency measures due to their critical role in delivering electricity and their potential for customer-oriented benefits. This article presents an innovative framework, named RETINA, which provides a resilient and secure energy trading mechanism within smart grid systems. RETINA tackles the inherent security and infrastructure challenges in smart grids by establishing a trust-based security layer and facilitating energy transactions through blockchain technology. Our proposed solution integrates Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and the Web of Trust (WoT) concepts, promoting decentralized communication channels and robust key management. We further introduce a smart contract-based energy trading mechanism that factors trust, distance, and energy type (green or non-green) in the cost calculation. The utility and robustness of RETINA have been validated in a virtualized testbed environment with 500 nodes, demonstrating superior performance in terms of scalability and resilience compared to the existing WoT scheme. Furthermore, RETINA successfully enables a secure and efficient energy trading scheme, promoting the use of renewable energy sources and promptly recovering from market manipulation attacks. Future enhancements will include applying it to a realistic smart grid deployment and integrating additional functionalities. This groundbreaking solution can potentially revolutionize the smart grid ecosystem, addressing its current limitations and propelling the industry toward a future of advanced and secure energy exchange.