Abstract
Smart grid solutions enable utilities and customers to better monitor and control energy use via information and communications technology. Information technology is intended to improve the future electric grid’s reliability, efficiency, and sustainability by implementing advanced monitoring and control systems. However, leveraging modern communications systems also makes the grid vulnerable to cyberattacks. Here we report the first use of quantum key distribution (QKD) keys in the authentication of smart grid communications. In particular, we make such demonstration on a deployed electric utility fiber network. The developed method was prototyped in a software package to manage and utilize cryptographic keys to authenticate machine-to-machine communications used for supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA). This demonstration showcases the feasibility of using QKD to improve the security of critical infrastructure, including future distributed energy resources (DERs), such as energy storage.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 12731 |
| Journal | Scientific Reports |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2022 |
Funding
We acknowledge the support of Steve Morrison, Tyler Morgan, and Ken Jones and Patrick Swingle. This work was partially performed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 for the DOE. We acknowledge support from the DOE Office of Cybersecurity Energy Security and Emergency Response (CESER) through the Cybersecurity for Energy Delivery Systems (CEDS) program.