Blockchain Technology for Information Security of the Energy Internet: Fundamentals, Features, Strategy and Application

Zilong Zeng, Yong Li, Yijia Cao, Yirui Zhao, Junjie Zhong, Denis Sidorov and Xiangcheng Zeng
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Zilong Zeng: College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Yong Li: College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Yijia Cao: College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Yirui Zhao: College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Junjie Zhong: College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Denis Sidorov: Energy Systems Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, 664033 Irkutsk, Russia
Xiangcheng Zeng: Xinning Electric Power Supply Company of State Grid Hunan Electric Power Company, Xinning 422700, China

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 4, 1-24

Abstract: In order to ensure the information security, most of the important information including the data of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) in the energy internet is currently transmitted and exchanged through the intranet or the carrier communication. The former increases the cost of network construction, and the latter is susceptible to interference and attacks in the process of information dissemination. The blockchain is an emerging decentralized architecture and distributed computing paradigm. Under the premise that these nodes do not need mutual trust, the blockchain can implement trusted peer-to-peer communication for protecting the important information by adopting distributed consensus mechanisms, encryption algorithms, point-to-point transmission and smart contracts. In response to the above issues, this paper firstly analyzes the information security problems existing in the energy internet from the four perspectives of system control layer, device access, market transaction and user privacy. Then blockchain technology is introduced, and its working principles and technical characteristics are analyzed. Based on the technical characteristics, we propose the multilevel and multichain information transmission model for the weak centralization of scheduling and the decentralization of transaction. Furthermore, we discuss that the information transmission model helps solve some of the information security issues from the four perspectives of system control, device access, market transaction and user privacy. Application examples are used to illustrate the technical features that benefited from the blockchain for the information security of the energy internet.

Keywords: blockchain; energy internet; information security (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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