RETINA: Distributed and Secure Trust Management for Smart Grid Applications and Energy Trading

TL;DR

RETINA addresses the core security and scalability challenges of smart-grid energy trading by integrating PKI/WoT-based trust with a Hyperledger Fabric blockchain and a smart-contract-driven trading layer. It introduces a dual-ledger architecture for endorsements and trading orders, remote-attestation-driven onboarding, and a trust-path lookup mechanism that sustains operations even when empowered nodes are unavailable. In a 500-node virtual testbed, RETINA outperforms traditional WoT in trust establishment time, demonstrates resilience to compromises, and enables a fee-less energy market that incentivizes renewable energy. The work advances decentralized, secure, and scalable smart-grid ecosystems with practical implications for renewables adoption and autonomous energy exchange.

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 paper 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 in trust, distance, and energy type (green or non-green) in 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. Future enhancements will include application to a realistic smart grid deployment and the integration of additional functionalities. This groundbreaking solution has the potential to revolutionize the smart grid ecosystem, addressing its current limitations and propelling the industry towards a future of advanced and secure energy exchange.

Figures (11)

• Figure 1: RETINA as an overlay framework, where network participants possess their own certificates, signed by nodes that endorse them
• Figure 2: Resources and operations within the RETINA network components
• Figure 3: RETINA smart contracts and Ledgers residing on the empowered nodes
• Figure 4: Node join operation
• Figure 5: A random snapshot of the process of exchanging signatures, depicting the connections that Nodes $A$ and $J$ make with the nodes that reside on the $2^{N}$ network positions