COnsumer-centric Privacy in smart Energy gridS

Smart meters have the capability to measure and record consumption data at a high time resolution and communicate such data to the energy provider. This provides the opportunity to better monitor and control the power grid and to enable demand response at the residential level. This not only improves the reliability of grid operations but also constitutes a key enabler to integrate variable renewable generation, such as wind or solar. However, the communication of high resolution consumption data also poses privacy risks as such data allows the utility, or a third party, to derive detailed information about consumer behavior. Hence, the main research objective of COPES is to develop new technologies to protect consumer privacy, while not sacrificing the "smartness", i.e., advanced control and monitoring functionalities. The core idea is to overlay the original consumption pattern with additional physical consumption or generation, thereby hiding the consumer privacy sensitive consumption. The means to achieve this include the usage of storage, small scale distributed generation and/or elastic energy consumptions. Hence, COPES proposes and develops a radically new approach to alter the physical energy flow, instead of purely relying on encryption of meter readings, which provides protection against third party intruders but does not prevent the use of this data by the energy provider. In order to efficiently hide consumption information, intelligent decisions and strategies on when to charge/discharge the storage, which energy source to tap into, need to be made in real time. Therefore, in this project, algorithms based on and extending upon differential privacy, information and detection theoretic first principles that allow efficient use of physical capabilities to alter the overall consumption measured by the smart meters will be developed. Since these resources can also be used to minimize the electricity bill or increase the integration of renewables, trade-offs between these objectives and privacy will be studied and combined into a holistic privacy guaranteeing house energy management system. Implementations on multiple small test systems will serve as a proof of concept of the proposed methods.

Scientific impact: Privacy has been understood primarily in the data context, and existing privacy-enhancing methods resort to cyber techniques, such as cryptography, authentication, etc. While the privacy of CPSs is receiving increasing attention, due to its importance in many essential technology areas, there is very little published work on privacy-aware energy demand strategies and privacy-aware control design. Hence, providing the tools to integrate privacy aspects into energy demand strategies and control theory per se are important scientific contributions which are not limited to the application of SMs and electric power systems, but applicable to other technologies in which physical measurements pose a risk of disclosing private information. Nevertheless, the considered application is a realistic and pressing challenge that needs to be solved, and serves as a perfect benchmark problem to test the theory that we will develop. Similarly, understanding which privacy notion is most appropriate for the system at hand, and its capability in hiding consumers' energy consumption against non-intrusive load monitoring techniques will be an essential scientific contribution allowing the use of such privacy measures and tools in smart grid design.

Societal impact: Preservation of privacy is a major societal challenge in this day and age. Higher resolution data provided by SMs is an important component of the smart grid as it allows the implementation of demand response concepts, and supports the integration of renewable generation into the grid. However, the deployment of SMs has rightfully raised significant concerns about the privacy of consumers. The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) has warned that SMs will be used to track much more than energy consumption unless proper safeguards are introduced. These concerns have led to the formation of many consumer advocacy groups campaigning against SMs, and in Netherlands to the blocking of SM roll out by the parliament. COPES solution, by solving the privacy problem, will lead to higher acceptance of SMs, and will prevent wasting billions of Euros invested in SMs vulnerable to privacy attacks, or delaying of SM roll outs, which will then delay the implementation of a sustainable electric energy grid, an economical and political priority for Europe. These risks are not limited to SMs, as the Internet of Things (IoT) Consortium recently announced that privacy is a major concern for customers' adoption of IoT solutions. Since the principles developed in COPES can be transferred to other CPS/IoT applications, a much broader impact is expected from the project outcomes.

Potential markets for the developed technologies include manufacturers and vendors of SMs. Current SMs in the market exhibit significant vulnerabilities for hacking and other attacks. An approach which does not just rely purely on encryption mechanisms against unintended intruders, but actually alters the physical flow of energy, could be used as an add-on to these devices. On the other hand, such a technology also provides a lot of value to electric power providers who want the transition to a smart grid, and need to ensure consumer trust in their technology. Last but not least, consumers, either individual home users or businesses, whose privacy is at risk, constitute a major target for such a technology. Furthermore, other application areas where privacy of consumption data is a major issue (e.g., IoT) may serve as important additional markets.