| Abstract |
Smart grids have become a future trend due to the development of technology and increased
energy demand and consumption. In smart grids, users’ electricity consumption is
recorded by their smart meters, and the smart meters submit the data to the operation center in
each time unit for monitoring. The operation center analyzes the data it receives to estimate
users’ electricity usage in the next time unit and to ensure dynamic energy distribution. Compared
to traditional grids, the electricity can be flexibly controlled, and waste is decreased in
smart grids. However, details of users’ daily lives may be leaked out through the frequent monitoring
of users’ electricity usage, which causes the problem of privacy preserving. To solve
the problem, data aggregation mechanisms are adopted in this environment. The power usage
data in the same units are aggregated before being sent to the operation center. This aggregation
prevents personal electricity usage data from being shared with the operation center. Thus,
users’ privacy is protected.
Along with the increase in the number of research studies on smart grids, many studies on
the privacy-preserving issues of power usage have been published. However, both power usage
data and electricity payment data may jeopardize users’ privacy. The operation center is able to
obtain users’ private information by analyzing users’ electricity payments. Therefore, we propose
a verifiable privacy-preserving payment mechanism for smart grids. In our scheme, users
can submit electricity payments without revealing any private information, and the operation
center can verify the correctness of the payment. |
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