Siemens-EPSRC: Blockchain-enabled cloud-edge coordination for demand side manangement
Lead Research Organisation:
Imperial College London
Department Name: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Abstract
To achieve the net-zero target, extremely high penetration of renewable energy resources (RES) will be integrated into the grid. The inherent uncertainty and intermittency of RES could threaten power system security by causing power imbalance, voltage violation, frequency fluctuation, and eventually a large-scale blackout, which may prevent the achievement of the net-zero target. Demand-side management (DSM) is regarded as a silver bullet to enhance the power system operational flexibility for boosting the accommodation of RES in a cost-effective manner. DSM refers to the techniques that can dynamically adjust the customer's power and energy demand based on market signals for enhancing the reliability, resilience, sustainability, security, and economics of local power systems. While the value of DSM to provide multi-provision service across the whole operation timeline, including balancing service, renewable support, network support, frequency response provision, voltage regulation provision, and capacity market, has been widely quantified, the actual implementation to achieve such value by simultaneously managing large-scale heterogeneous demand in a sustainable, privacy-preserved, and secure manner still requires further investigation.
Under most of the existing schemes, DSM is performed by a remote centralized aggregator's cloud computing facility. Therefore, the onsite captured demand data has to traverse through a long physical distance to the aggregator's cloud. Although cloud computing is powerful, mature, and ubiquitous, its centralized nature suffers from the bandwidth and time delay requirement of DSM due to the massive heterogeneous data transmission through shared infrastructure. Furthermore, some industries and houses are located in the energy-poor area with less-developed infrastructure. Therefore, their data are not reachable over reliable network connections, which prevents their participation in DSM schemes. The inequality of rich and poor communities could be exacerbated by using the DSM since rich communities will better benefits from DSM. In addition, centralized computing could result in privacy concerns as each consumer is required to submit its proprietary demand data to the central aggregator's cloud center. In this context, the existing cloud computing should be expanded across multi-sites and networks for timely data processes while ensuring efficiency and robustness.
This project solves the mentioned challenges by using advanced digitalization technologies. First, we investigate various frameworks for cloud-edge coordination under DSM application, which can intelligently and dynamically assign different tasks to the cloud and edge centers based on different types of service provision, the availability/capability of edge, and the choice of consumers. Second, we investigate the application of blockchain for data management and service performance evaluation for local processors, which guarantee that data authenticity and integrity are guaranteed without extra investment in hardware. As a result, even less-developed industries and houses can ensure that the stored data is secure. Moreover, the smart contract can be employed to evaluate the performance of the service provided by the demand. Finally, we propose a secure communication framework using blockchain in the wireless communication environment. A novel dynamic data integrity system combining hash, digital signature, and asymmetric encryption will be investigated to protect and transmit data for end-to-end secure interaction across the entire system, from smart meters to cloud centers. The communication framework is specially optimized for the current wireless communication network provided by the LTE and 5G base stations.
Under most of the existing schemes, DSM is performed by a remote centralized aggregator's cloud computing facility. Therefore, the onsite captured demand data has to traverse through a long physical distance to the aggregator's cloud. Although cloud computing is powerful, mature, and ubiquitous, its centralized nature suffers from the bandwidth and time delay requirement of DSM due to the massive heterogeneous data transmission through shared infrastructure. Furthermore, some industries and houses are located in the energy-poor area with less-developed infrastructure. Therefore, their data are not reachable over reliable network connections, which prevents their participation in DSM schemes. The inequality of rich and poor communities could be exacerbated by using the DSM since rich communities will better benefits from DSM. In addition, centralized computing could result in privacy concerns as each consumer is required to submit its proprietary demand data to the central aggregator's cloud center. In this context, the existing cloud computing should be expanded across multi-sites and networks for timely data processes while ensuring efficiency and robustness.
This project solves the mentioned challenges by using advanced digitalization technologies. First, we investigate various frameworks for cloud-edge coordination under DSM application, which can intelligently and dynamically assign different tasks to the cloud and edge centers based on different types of service provision, the availability/capability of edge, and the choice of consumers. Second, we investigate the application of blockchain for data management and service performance evaluation for local processors, which guarantee that data authenticity and integrity are guaranteed without extra investment in hardware. As a result, even less-developed industries and houses can ensure that the stored data is secure. Moreover, the smart contract can be employed to evaluate the performance of the service provided by the demand. Finally, we propose a secure communication framework using blockchain in the wireless communication environment. A novel dynamic data integrity system combining hash, digital signature, and asymmetric encryption will be investigated to protect and transmit data for end-to-end secure interaction across the entire system, from smart meters to cloud centers. The communication framework is specially optimized for the current wireless communication network provided by the LTE and 5G base stations.
Publications
Zografopoulos I
(2022)
Mitigation of Cyberattacks through Battery Storage for Stable Microgrid Operation
Yan M
(2023)
Blockchain for secure decentralized energy management of multi-energy system using state machine replication
in Applied Energy
Xu W
(2023)
Robust Moving Target Defence Against False Data Injection Attacks in Power Grids
in IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security
Wang C
(2023)
Cyber-Physical Interdependent Restoration Scheduling for Active Distribution Network via Ad Hoc Wireless Communication
in IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid
Wan X
(2023)
AdapSafe: Adaptive and Safe-Certified Deep Reinforcement Learning-Based Frequency Control for Carbon-Neutral Power Systems
in Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Ge P
(2023)
Cyber-Resilient Self-Triggered Distributed Control of Networked Microgrids Against Multi-Layer DoS Attacks
in IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid
Ge P
(2022)
A resilience-oriented centralised-to-decentralised framework for networked microgrids management
in Applied Energy
Ge P
(2023)
Fixed-Time Convergent Distributed Observer Design of Linear Systems: A Kernel-Based Approach
in IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control
Chu Z
(2023)
Mitigating Load-Altering Attacks Against Power Grids Using Cyber-Resilient Economic Dispatch
in IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid
Chen Y
(2023)
Vulnerability and Impact of Machine Learning-Based Inertia Forecasting Under Cost-Oriented Data Integrity Attack
in IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid
Castiglione L
(2022)
HA-Grid: Security Aware Hazard Analysis for Smart Grids
Bellizio F
(2023)
Transition to Digitalized Paradigms for Security Control and Decentralized Electricity Market
in Proceedings of the IEEE
Description | Industry webinar "CYBER SECURE Grids of the Future: |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | 24% of all cybersecurity incidents in the UK in 2021 targeted the energy sector, making it the most attacked industry and 56% of utilities report at least one attack involving a loss of private information or an outage in the OT environment in the past 12 months. The threat is changing, listen to our experts as they discuss how to keep networks secure. Join us throughout this series as we dive deeper into how digital technologies are going to shape our Grids of the Future! Up next, CYBER SECURE Grids of the Future. Hear from our panel of; Host: Ben Gray, Schneider Electric - Marketing Manager Power & Grid UK&I Luc Manfredi - Director Cyber Security, PWC Dr Fei Teng - Director of Education at Energy Futures Lab and Lecturer at Imperial Collage London |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://community.se.com/t5/Power-Events-Webinars/CYBER-SECURE-Grids-of-the-Future/ba-p/402683 |
Description | Webinar in "Value in Energy Data" series hosted by Energy Systems Catapult |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | "Value in Energy Data" is a series of seminars hosted by the Data Systems team at Energy Systems Catapult. ABSTRACT There is a growing trend to utilise data and machine learning to facilitate the decarbonisation of our energy sector. However, one of the key challenges is to obtain a high-quality dataset for the various applications. In particular, some energy data may contain individual personal and/or confidential business information, which has raised significant concerns over privacy. This talk aims to highlight such privacy challenges and present emerging privacy-preserving techniques to promote data sharing for energy system applications. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I87Li7-4Ndk&t=1993s |