Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Smart metering infrastructure'

With the increasing demand for energy throughout the world and the associated environmental problems, the development of a highly efficient and environmentally friendly Smart Grid has become an important objective worldwide. In Great Britain, the Smart Grid has been primarily focused on the distribution networks and smart metering is widely considered as a critical step towards the Smart Grid future. Conventionally, the communications infrastructure at the distribution level is very limited in terms of functionality and availability. There was very limited work to evaluate the impact of the communications performance of smart metering infrastructure on distribution network operation. This research investigated the impact of smart metering applications on communications requirements and the impact of the communications performance of smart metering infrastructure on distribution network operation. A smart metering communications infrastructure was modelled and simulated using OPNET. The impact of smart metering applications on smart metering communications requirements has been investigated. It is shown that individual communications requirements for smart meters are not particularly communications intensive and that infrequent large transactions posed the most significant challenges on the communications infrastructure. As the link speed decreased, large time delays were observed which have direct impact on the functions related to distribution network operations. An evaluation method was then developed to quantify the impact of smart metering communications infrastructure on distribution network operation. The main characteristics of the smart metering communications infrastructure were modelled. The characteristics of load variation were analysed and used to quantify the relationship between the time delay and the measurement error of the power system. The measured data from smart meters was refined to be used by the distribution network operational functions using state estimation and the impact was quantified using optimal power flow. Results show that fast data access is necessary for smart meter data to be used by the voltage control and the power control functions of a distribution network. The potential of using smart metering for outage management was investigated. A topology analysis method was developed which maps the physical plant model of a distribution network to a simplified analytical model. An outage area identification algorithm was developed which uses the information from smart meters and is based on the simplified network model. The outage area identification can act as one of the main functions of an outage management system providing possible outage extent information. The impact of smart meter communications on the outage area identification algorithm was investigated based on the OPNET communications model. Test results showed that smart metering has a potential to support outage management of a power distribution network. Test results showed that the arrival criterion and the smart metering communications infrastructure have a large impact on the performance of the outage area identification.

In recent years, the demand for electricity has increased in households with the use of different appliances. This raises a concern to many developed and developing nations with the demand in immediate increase of electricity. There is a need for consumers or people to track their daily power usage in houses. In Sweden, scarcity of energy resources is faced during the day. So, the responsibility of human to save and control these resources is also important. This research work focuses on a Smart Metering data for distributing the electricity smartly and efficiently to the consumers. The main drawback of previously used traditional meters is that they do not provide information to the consumers, which is accomplished with the help of Smart Meter. A Smart Meter helps consumer to know the information of consumption of electricity for appliances in their respective houses. The aim of this research work is to measure and analyze power consumption using Smart Meter data by conducting case study on various households. In addition of saving electricity, Smart Meter data illustrates the behaviour of consumers in using devices. As power consumption is increasing day by day there should be more focus on understanding consumption patterns i.e. measurement and analysis of consumption over time is required. In case of developing nations, the technology of employing smart electricity meters is still unaware to many common people and electricity utilities. So, there is a large necessity for saving energy by installing these meters. Lowering the energy expenditure by understanding the behavior of consumers and its correlation with electricity spot prices motivated to perform this research. The methodology followed to analyze the outcome of this study is exhibited with the help of a case analysis, ARIMA model using XLSTAT tool and a flattening technique. Based on price evaluation results provided in the research, hypothesis is attained to change the behavior of consumers when they have better control on their habits. This research contributes in measuring the Smart Meter power consumption data in various households and interpretation of the data for hourly measurement could cause consumers to switch consumption to off-peak periods. With the results provided in this research, users can change their behavior when they have better control on their habits. As a result, power consumption patterns of Smart electricity distribution are studied and analyzed, thereby leading to an innovative idea for saving the limited resource of electrical energy.
+91 9908265578

Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is one of the most important components of smart grid (SG) which aggregates data from smart meters (SMs) and sends the collected data to the utility center (UC) to be analyzed and stored. In traditional centralized AMI architecture, there is one meter data management system to process all gathered information in the UC, therefore, by increasing the number of SMs and their data rates, this architecture is not scalable and able to satisfy SG requirements, e.g., delay and reliability. Since scalability is one of most important characteristics of AMI architecture in SG, we have investigated the scalability of different AMI architectures and proposed a scalable hybrid AMI architecture. We have introduced three performance metrics. Based on these metrics, we formulated each AMI architecture and used a genetic-based algorithm to minimize these metrics for the proposed architecture. We simulated different AMI architectures for five demographic regions and the results proved that our proposed AMI hybrid architecture has a better performance compared with centralized and decentralized AMI architectures and it has a good load and geographic scalability.

In this thesis we investigate security challenges in smart grid and propose several algorithms for detecting malicious activities against AMI. Our work includes two parts. In the first part, we focus on the problem of intrusion detection in ZigBee HANs. We study the requirements and challenges of designing intrusion detection systems for HANs, and suggest application of model based intrusion detection and automatic intrusion prevention techniques. Accordingly we design algorithms for detecting and preventing spoofing attacks as an important attack type against wireless networks. We extend this work to design an intrusion detection and prevention system for ZigBee HANs, HANIDPS, which is able to detect and automatically stop various attack types. Through extensive experiments and analysis we show that the proposed method is able to detect and stop the attacks with high precision, low cost and short delay, which makes it suitable for HANs. Considering that in HANIDPS the prevention operation is performed automatically, costs of false positives are low and limited to some network overhead. Also the delay in stopping the attacks is significantly shortened compared to when human intervention is required. This reduces the damages caused by possible attacks. In the next part, we focus on detection of cyber intrusions that affect the load curve. We suggest that by monitoring abnormalities in customers' consumption pattern these attacks are detectable. We introduce a consumption pattern based electricity theft detector, CPBETD, which unlike previous techniques is robust against nonmalicious changes in consumption pattern and provides a high and adjustable performance without jeopardizing customers' privacy. Extensive experiments on real dataset of 5000 customers show the effectiveness of our approach. We also introduce instantaneous anomaly detector, IAD, which by monitoring the usage patterns effectively detects attacks against direct and indirect load control which are some of the major concerns in AMI.
Applied Science, Faculty of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of
Graduate

The ongoing Smart Grid (SG) initiative proposes several modifications to the existing power grid in order to better manage power demands, reduce CO2 emissions and ensure reliability through several new applications. One part of the SG initiative that is currently being implemented is the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) which provides two-way communication between the utility company and the consumers' smart meters (SMs). The AMI can be built by using a wireless mesh network which enables multi-hop communication of SMs. The AMI network enables collection of fine-grained power consumption data at frequent intervals. Such a fine-grained level poses several privacy concerns for the consumers. Eavesdroppers can capture data packets and analyze them by means of load monitoring techniques to make inferences about household activities. To prevent this, in this dissertation, we proposed several privacy-preserving protocols for the IEEE 802.11s-based AMI network, which are based on data obfuscation, fully homomorphic encryption and secure multiparty computation. Simulation results have shown that the performance of the protocols degrades as the network grows. To overcome this problem, we presented a scalable simulation framework for the evaluation of IEEE 802.11s-based AMI applications. We proposed several modifications and parameter adjustments for the network protocols being used. In addition, we integrated the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) into the protocol stack and proposed five novel retransmission timeout calculation functions for the CoAP in order to increase its reliability. Upon work showing that there are inconsistencies between the simulator and a testbed, we built an IEEE 802.11s- and ZigBee-based AMI testbed and measured the performance of the proposed protocols under various conditions. The testbed is accessible to the educator and researchers for the experimentation. Finally, we addressed the problem of updating SMs remotely to keep the AMI network up-to-date. To this end, we developed two secure and reliable multicast-over-broadcast protocols by making use of ciphertext-policy attribute based signcryption and random linear network coding.

European Union has set a target to install nearly 200 million smart metersspread over Europe before 2020, this leads into a vast increase of sensitiveinformation flow for Distribution System Operators (DSO’s), simultaneously thisleads to raised cyber security threats. The in and outgoing information of the DSOneeds to be processed and stored by different Information technology (IT)- andOperational Technology (OT)-systems depending on the information. High demandsare therefore required of the enterprise cyber security to be able to protect theenterprise IT- and OT-systems. Sensitive customer information and a variety ofservices and functionality is examples that could be fatal to a DSO if compromised.For instance, if someone with bad intentions has the possibility to tinker with yourelectricity, while you’re away on holiday. If they succeed with the attack and shuttingdown the house electricity, your food stored in your fridge and freezer would mostlikely to be rotted, additionally damage from defrost water leaking could cause severedamaging on walls and floors. In this thesis, a detailed reference model of theadvanced metering architecture (AMI) has been produced to support enterprisesinvolved in the process of implementing smart meter architecture and to adapt to newrequirements regarding cyber security. This has been conduct using foreseeti's toolsecuriCAD, foreseeti is a proactive cyber security company using architecturemanagement. SecuriCAD is a modeling tool that can conduct cyber security analysis,where the user can see how long time it would take for a professional penetrationtester to penetrate the systems in the model depending of the set up and defenseattributes of the architecture. By varying defense mechanisms of the systems, fourscenarios have been defined and used to formulate recommendations based oncalculations of the advanced meter architecture. Recommendation in brief: Use smalland distinct network zones with strict communication rules between them. Do diligentsecurity arrangements for the system administrator PC. The usage of IntrusionProtection System (IPS) in the right fashion can delay the attacker with a percentageof 46% or greater.
Europeiska Unionen har satt upp ett mål att installera nära 200miljoner smarta elmätare innan år 2020, spritt utöver Europa, implementeringen ledertill en rejäl ökning av känsliga dataflöden för El-distributörer och intresset av cyberattacker ökar. Både ingående och utgående information behöver processas och lagraspå olika IT- och OT-system beroende på informationen. Höga krav gällande ITsäkerhet ställs för att skydda till exempel känslig kundinformation samt en mängdvarierande tjänster och funktioner som är implementerade i systemen. Typer avattacker är till exempel om någon lyckats få kontroll over eltillgängligheten och skullestänga av elektriciteten till hushåll vilket skulle till exempel leda till allvarligafuktskador till följd av läckage från frysen. I den här uppsatsen så har en tillräckligtdetaljerad referens modell för smart elmätar arkitektur tagits fram för att möjliggörasäkerhetsanalyser och för att underlätta för företag i en potentiell implementation avsmart elmätare arkitektur. Ett verktyg som heter securiCAD som är utvecklat avforeseeti har använts för att modellera arkitekturen. securiCAD är ett modelleringsverktyg som använder sig av avancerade beräknings algoritmer för beräkna hur långtid det skulle ta för en professionell penetrationstestare att lyckats penetrera de olikasystem med olika sorters attacker beroende på försvarsmekanismer och hurarkitekturen är uppbyggd. Genom att variera systemens försvar och processer så harfyra scenarion definierats. Med hjälp av resultaten av de fyra scenarierna så harrekommendationer tagits fram. Rekommendationer i korthet: Använd små ochdistinkta nätverkszoner med tydliga regler som till exempel vilka system som fårkommunicera med varandra och vilket håll som kommunikationen är tillåten.Noggranna säkerhetsåtgärder hos systemadministratörens dator. Användningen avIPS: er, genom att placera och använda IPS: er på rätt sätt så kan man fördröjaattacker med mer än 46% enligt jämförelser mellan de olika scenarier.

O sistema de energia atual passou por poucas alterações desde sua concepção original, há mais de 100 anos. No entanto, a crescente complexidade da infraestrutura e da demanda global por energia vem criando diversos desafios que a sua constituição original não previa, culminando em problemas como apagões e outras falhas no seu fornecimento. Além disso, nota-se nos últimos anos, principalmente nos países desenvolvidos, uma certa diversificação na matriz energética, incentivando a utilização de fontes de energia renováveis e distribuídas. Isto se deve não apenas ao potencial energético das, mas também visando uma menor utilização de combustíveis fósseis, devido tanto a volatilidade e tendência de alta dos preços do petróleo, mas também pela necessidade de contenção do volume de emissões de gases causadores do efeito estufa. Apesar desta defasagem do sistema de energia contemporâneo, avanços nas áreas de informática, eletrônica embarcada, além das tecnologias empregadas na construção de sensores e atuadores, têm possibilitado a criação de uma rede de energia moderna, automatizada e distribuída. Esta rede, conhecida como Mart Grid, traz novas perspectivas no gerenciamento e na operação dos sistemas de geração, transmissão e distribuição de energia elétrica, inserindo propostas que visam melhorar diversos fatores da rede de energia atual, aumentado sua eficiência, segurança e confiabilidade de transmissão, além da eliminação de obstáculos para a integração em larga escala de fontes de energia distribuídas e renováveis. Este novo paradigma é caracterizado por um fluxo bidirecional de eletricidade e de informações, afim de criar uma rede automatizada e distribuída de energia. Ele incorpora à grade os benefícios da computação distribuída e de comunicações para fornecer informações em tempo real e permitir o equilíbrio quase instantâneo da oferta e da procura dos bens energéticos. Dentro do contexto de Smart Grids, Smart Appliances são uma modernização dos aparelhos eletrodomésticos quanto a sua utilização de energia, de forma que estes sejam capazes de monitorar, proteger e ajustar automaticamente o seu funcionamento às necessidades do proprietário e a disponibilidade deste recurso. Ou seja, estes possuem não apenas características de inteligência, mas também a capacidade de utilizarem as informações disponibilizados no Smart Grid para adaptar seu funcionamento. Apesar do grande interesse despertado em torno destes conceitos, há ainda uma enorme carência de padrões e tecnologias que permitam a criação de tais aparelhos inteligentes inseridos nos ambientes domésticos e prediais. Este trabalho tem por objetivo estudar e conceituar o Smart Grid, pesquisando os grupos existentes que buscam uma padronização deste, bem como conceituar Smart Appliances, avaliando projetos e pesquisas existentes, e, principalmente, propondo uma arquitetura que permita a construção de tais dispositivos. Os requisitos necessários para a criação desta arquitetura são discutidos ao longo da dissertação, bem como as tecnologias necessárias e existentes para permitir sua proposta. Finalmente, o funcionamento bem sucedido, através de uma implementação da mesma, é demonstrado através de diferentes experimentos, avaliando como as características do Smart Grid podem ser utilizadas para criar aparelhos eletrodomésticos capazes de usarem as informações disponíveis para melhorar seu funcionamento.
Since its original conception, for over 100 years, the current energy system has experienced little changes. However, the increasing complexity of the infrastructure, together with the growing global demand for energy, have imposed many challenges that its original constitution did not foresee, which has resulted in problems such as blackouts along with other energy supply failures. Moreover, over the last few years, some diversification in energy generation has been seen, especially in developed countries, encouraging the use of distributed and renewable energy sources. Apart from the energetic potential offered by those sources, it aims to decrease the greenhouse gases emission volume, in addition to reduce dependency on fossil fuels, which tend to increase in price. Despite the lack of upgrades, improvements in the areas of computing, embedded electronics, and technologies employed in sensors and actuators assembly have enabled the creation of a modern automated and distributed power grid. This grid, better known as Smart Grid, enhances several factors of the current power network, bringing new perspectives in electricity management, operation, generation, transmission and distribution. That result in increased efficiency, transmission safety and reliability, additionally eliminating obstacles in large-scale integration of renewable and distributed energy sources. This new paradigm also features a bi-directional electricity and information flow, enabling an automated and distributed energy network that incorporates the grid benefits of distributed computing and communications to provide real-time information and allowing almost instantaneous supply and demand balance of energy goods. Within the context of Smart Grids, Smart Appliances proposes an extension of regular appliances with intelligence and self-awareness of their energy use, so that they are able to monitor, protect and automatically adjust its operation according to the owner's needs and availability of this resource. That is, besides of being smart, they feature ability to use the information available on the Smart Grid to adapt its running behavior. Even though the increased interest around these concepts, there is still a gap of standards and technologies enabling the creation and embedding of intelligent devices in residences and buildings. The present projects attempts to study and conceptualize Smart Grid, surveying existing standardization groups, as well as conceptualize Smart Appliances, evaluating existing projects and research, proposing an architecture allowing the building of such devices. The requirements for this architecture, together with the required and existing technologies to make the implementation feasible, are discussed throughout the project development. Finally, the architecture's successful functioning is demonstrated through an implementation of it, together with different experiments, relying on them to evaluate the Smart Grid characteristics and how appliances can improve their operation based on the information shared throughout the Smart Grid.

While the newly envisioned smart grid will result in a more efficient and reliable power grid, its use of fine-grained meter data has widely raised concerns of consumer privacy. This thesis implements a data obfuscation approach to preserve consumer privacy and assesses its feasibility on a large-scale advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) network built upon the new IEEE 802.11s wireless mesh standard. This obfuscation approach preserves consumer privacy from eavesdroppers and the utility companies while preserving the utility companies' ability to use the fine-grained meter data for state estimation. The impact of this privacy approach is assessed based on its impact on data throughput and delay performance. Simulation results have shown that the approach is feasible to be used even when the network size grows. Additional adaptations to the approach are analyzed for their feasibility in further research.

The increasing demand for and prevalence of distributed energy resources (DER) such as solar power, electric vehicles, and energy storage, present a unique set of challenges for integration into a legacy power grid, and accurate models of the low-voltage distribution systems are critical for accurate simulations of DER. Accurate labeling of the phase connections for each customer in a utility model is one area of grid topology that is known to have errors and has implications for the safety, efficiency, and hosting capacity of a distribution system. This research presents a methodology for the phase identification of customers solely using the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) voltage timeseries. This thesis proposes to use Spectral Clustering, combined with a sliding window ensemble method for utilizing a long-term, time-series dataset that includes missing data, to group customers within a lateral by phase. These clustering phase predictions validate over 90% of the existing phase labels in the model and identify customers where the current phase labels are incorrect in this model. Within this dataset, this methodology produces consistent, high-quality results, verified by validating the clustering phase predictions with the underlying topology of the system, as well as selected examples verified using satellite and street view images publicly available in Google Earth. Further analysis of the results of the Spectral Clustering predictions are also shown to not only validate and improve the phase labels in the utility model, but also show potential in the detection of other types of errors in the topology of the model such as errors in the labeling of connections between customers and transformers, unlabeled residential solar power, unlabeled transformers, and locating customers with incomplete information in the model. These results indicate excellent potential for further development of this methodology as a tool for validating and improving existing utility models of the low-voltage side of the distribution system.

Smart grid technologies are starting to be the future of electric power systems. These systems are giving the utilities detailed information about their systems in real time. One of the most challenging things of implementing smart grid applications is employing the communications into the systems. Understanding the available communications can help ease the transition to these smart grid applications. Many of the utility personnel are spending too much time trying to figure out which communication is better for their application or applications. So this thesis presents the different communication types available with discussing the different attributes in which these communication types are going to offer to the utility. Then these communication types are looked such that utilities can quickly understand how to approach the difficult task of obtaining the information from the different smart grid applications by the use of different communication options.

Smart Grid (SG) is an electrical grid enhanced with information and communication technology capabilities, so it can support two-way electricity and communication flows among various entities in the grid. The aim of SG is to make the electricity industry operate more efficiently and to provide electricity in a more secure, reliable and sustainable manner. Automated Meter Reading (AMR) and Smart Electric Vehicle (SEV) charging are two SG applications tipped to play a major role in achieving this aim. The AMR application allows different SG entities to collect users’ fine-grained metering data measured by users’ Smart Meters (SMs). The SEV charging application allows EVs’ charging parameters to be changed depending on the grid’s state in return for incentives for the EV owners. However, both applications impose risks on users’ privacy. Entities having access to users’ fine-grained metering data may use such data to infer individual users’ personal habits. In addition, users’ private information such as users’/EVs’ identities and charging locations could be exposed when EVs are charged. Entities may use such information to learn users’ whereabouts, thus breach their privacy. This thesis proposes secure and user privacy-preserving protocols to support AMR and SEV charging in an efficient, scalable and cost-effective manner. First, it investigates both applications. For AMR, (1) it specifies an extensive set of functional requirements taking into account the way liberalised electricity markets work and the interests of all SG entities, (2) it performs a comprehensive threat analysis, based on which, (3) it specifies security and privacy requirements, and (4) it proposes to divide users’ data into two types: operational data (used for grid management) and accountable data (used for billing). For SEV charging, (1) it specifies two modes of charging: price-driven mode and price-control-driven mode, and (2) it analyses two use-cases: price-driven roaming SEV charging at home location and price-control-driven roaming SEV charging at home location, by performing threat analysis and specifying sets of functional, security and privacy requirements for each of the two cases. Second, it proposes a novel Decentralized, Efficient, Privacy-preserving and Selective Aggregation (DEP2SA) protocol to allow SG entities to collect users’ fine-grained operational metering data while preserving users’ privacy. DEP2SA uses the homomorphic Paillier cryptosystem to ensure the confidentiality of the metering data during their transit and data aggregation process. To preserve users’ privacy with minimum performance penalty, users’ metering data are classified and aggregated accordingly by their respective local gateways based on the users’ locations and their contracted suppliers. In this way, authorised SG entities can only receive the aggregated data of users they have contracts with. DEP2SA has been analysed in terms of security, computational and communication overheads, and the results show that it is more secure, efficient and scalable as compared with related work. Third, it proposes a novel suite of five protocols to allow (1) suppliers to collect users accountable metering data, and (2) users (i) to access, manage and control their own metering data and (ii) to switch between electricity tariffs and suppliers, in an efficient and scalable manner. The main ideas are: (i) each SM to have a register, named accounting register, dedicated only for storing the user’s accountable data, (ii) this register is updated by design at a low frequency, (iii) the user’s supplier has unlimited access to this register, and (iv) the user cancustomise how often this register is updated with new data. The suite has been analysed in terms of security, computational and communication overheads. Fourth, it proposes a novel protocol, known as Roaming Electric Vehicle Charging and Billing, an Anonymous Multi-User (REVCBAMU) protocol, to support the priced-driven roaming SEV charging at home location. During a charging session, a roaming EV user uses a pseudonym of the EV (known only to the user’s contracted supplier) which is anonymously signed by the user’s private key. This protocol protects the user’s identity privacy from other suppliers as well as the user’s privacy of location from its own supplier. Further, it allows the user’s contracted supplier to authenticate the EV and the user. Using two-factor authentication approach a multi-user EV charging is supported and different legitimate EV users (e.g., family members) can be held accountable for their charging sessions. With each charging session, the EV uses a different pseudonym which prevents adversaries from linking the different charging sessions of the same EV. On an application level, REVCBAMU supports fair user billing, i.e., each user pays only for his/her own energy consumption, and an open EV marketplace in which EV users can safely choose among different remote host suppliers. The protocol has been analysed in terms of security and computational overheads.

The power grid has changed a great deal from what has been generally viewed as a traditional power grid. The modernization of the power grid has seen an increase in the integration and incorporation of computing and communication elements, creating an interdependence of both physical and cyber assets of the power grid. The fast-increasing connectivity has transformed the grid from what used to be primarily a physical system into a Cyber- Physical System (CPS). The physical elements within a power grid are well understood by power engineers; however, the newly deployed cyber aspects are new to most researchers and operators in this field. The new computing and communications structure brings new vulnerabilities along with all the benefits it provides. Cyber security of the power grid is critical due to the potential impact it can make on the community or society that relies on the critical infrastructure. These vulnerabilities have already been exploited in the attack on the Ukrainian power grid, a highly sophisticated, multi-layered attack which caused large power outages for numerous customers. There is an urgent need to understand the cyber aspects of the modernized power grid and take the necessary precautions such that the security of the CPS can be better achieved. The power grid is dependent on two main cyber infrastructures, i.e., Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) and Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). This thesis investigates the AMI in power grids by developing a testbed environment that can be created and used to better understand and develop security strategies to remove the vulnerabilities that exist within it. The testbed is to be used to conduct and implement security strategies, i.e., an Intrusion Detections Systems (IDS), creating an emulated environment to best resemble the environment of the AMI system. A DoS flooding attack and an IDS are implemented on the emulated testbed to show the effectiveness and validate the performance of the emulated testbed.
M.S.
The power grid is becoming more digitized and is utilizing information and communication technologies more, hence the smart grid. New systems are developed and utilized in the modernized power grid that directly relies on new communication networks. The power grid is becoming more efficient and more effective due to these developments, however, there are some considerations to be made as for the security of the power grid. An important expectation of the power grid is the reliability of power delivery to its customers. New information and communication technology integration brings rise to new cyber vulnerabilities that can inhibit the functionality of the power grid. A coordinated cyber-attack was conducted against the Ukrainian power grid in 2015 that targeted the cyber vulnerabilities of the system. The attackers made sure that the grid operators were unable to observe their system being attacked via Denial of Service attacks. Smart meters are the digitized equivalent of a traditional energy meter, it wirelessly communicates with the grid operators. An increase in deployment of these smart meters makes it such that we are more dependent on them and hence creating a new vulnerability for an attack. The smart meter integration into the power grid needs to be studied and carefully considered for the prevention of attacks. A testbed is created using devices that emulate the smart meters and a network is established between the devices. The network was attacked with a Denial of Service attack to validate the testbed performance, and an Intrusion detection method was developed and applied onto the testbed to prove that the testbed created can be used to study and develop methods to cover the vulnerabilities present.

This master’s thesis is dealing with remote measuring systems and their utilization in power engineering. In the first part there are described requirements on an autonomous measuring system and description of AMM and AMR systems. Communicating and data flows working on accurately defined communicating layers are also depicted in this part. The attention is devoted to the possibility of data processing and functions of devices offered by these attributes. In the following part there are described reasons for utilization of remote measuring systems in power engineering and the main advantages of connection of more devices into one unit. After finding of required parametres and functions of systems, a suggestion of terminal device is created in the same way. The suggestion is described in the measuring part with A/D converter, processing in microprocessor, measuring and evaluating alogorithms and attributes of communication of bus used. The last part is devoted to utilization of remote analysis in small power stations in dispersed production. Formation of deformation of voltage, harmonic analysis of signal and its application for data processing are described there. Described analysis was tested on data acquired from a cogeneration unit.

In recent years, the Smart Grid has grown to be the solution for future electrical energy that promises to avoid blackouts as well as to be energy efficient, environmentally and customer-friendly. In Smart Grid, the customer-friendly applications are a key element that provides the feature for recognizing the active expenditure of current energy via an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) subsystem. In fact, the smart meter, as a major part of AMI that is installed in residences, which provides more details about a consumer‟s usage. The smart meter measures hour-by-hour usage of a house, and then instantly transmits the record to the utility via two-way communications, unlike the previous electrical system that collects all usage monthly. However, the live measurement of the usage creates a potential privacy leak since each electrical usage records the behaviour of consumers in the home. Therefore, any communication channel between customers and utility should have some sort of confidentiality which protects consumer privacy. In reality, smart meters are generally located in an insecure area of the house (outside), therefore anyone can potentially tamper with the device, noting the fact that it is low-end device. As a result, there is a great possibility of compromising the smart meter, resulting in disclosure of consumer usage. Actually, the nature of a smart meter, and the cost constraints, create a challenge to secure the network. Therefore, the dual motivating problems are the protection of consumer privacy as well as achieving cost efficiency. In this research, we propose a new secure and compromise resilient architecture that continues two major components: a smart meters compromise attack detection scheme and a secure usage reporting protocol. Firstly, the smart meters compromise attack detection scheme improves the security of the smart meter, preventing an adversary from compromising the smart meter. Secondly, the secure usage reporting protocol improves the security of communication between the smart meter and the utility, preventing an adversary from identifying each household's usage reported by smart meters.
UOIT

Utility companies (electricity, gas, and water suppliers), governments, and researchers recognize an urgent need to deploy communication-based systems to automate data collection from smart meters and sensors, known as Smart Metering Infrastructure (SMI) or Automatic Meter Reading (AMR). A smart metering system is envisaged to bring tremendous benefits to customers, utilities, and governments. The advantages include reducing peak demand for energy, supporting the time-of-use concept for billing, enabling customers to make informed decisions, and performing effective load management, to name a few. A key element in an SMI is communications between meters and utility servers. However, the mass deployment of metering devices in the grid calls for studying the scalability of communication protocols. SMI is characterized by the deployment of a large number of small Internet Protocol (IP) devices sending small packets at a low rate to a central server. Although the individual devices generate data at a low rate, the collective traffic produced is significant and is disruptive to network communication functionality. This research work focuses on the scalability of the transport layer functionalities. The TCP congestion control mechanism, in particular, would be ineffective for the traffic of smart meters because a large volume of data comes from a large number of individual sources. This situation makes the TCP congestion control mechanism unable to lower the transmission rate even when congestion occurs. The consequences are a high loss rate for metered data and degraded throughput for competing traffic in the smart metering network. To enhance the performance of TCP in a smart metering infrastructure (SMI), we introduce a novel TCP-based scheme, called Split- and Aggregated-TCP (SA-TCP). This scheme is based on the idea of upgrading intermediate devices in SMI (known in the industry as regional collectors) to offer the service of aggregating the TCP connections. An SA-TCP aggregator collects data packets from the smart meters of its region over separate TCP connections; then it reliably forwards the data over another TCP connection to the utility server. The proposed split and aggregated scheme provides a better response to traffic conditions and, most importantly, makes the TCP congestion control and flow control mechanisms effective. Supported by extensive ns-2 simulations, we show the effectiveness of the SA-TCP approach to mitigating the problems in terms of the throughput and packet loss rate performance metrics. A full mathematical model of SA-TCP is provided. The model is highly accurate and flexible in predicting the behaviour of the two stages, separately and combined, of the SA-TCP scheme in terms of throughput, packet loss rate and end-to-end delay. Considering the two stages of the scheme, the modelling approach uses Markovian models to represent smart meters in the first stage and SA-TCP aggregators in the second. Then, the approach studies the interaction of smart meters and SA-TCP aggregators with the network by means of standard queuing models. The ns-2 simulations validate the math model results. A comprehensive performance analysis of the SA-TCP scheme is performed. It studies the impact of varying various parameters on the scheme, including the impact of network link capacity, buffering capacity of those RCs that act as SA-TCP aggregators, propagation delay between the meters and the utility server, and finally, the number of SA-TCP aggregators. The performance results show that adjusting those parameters makes it possible to further enhance congestion control in SMI. Therefore, this thesis also formulates an optimization model to achieve better TCP performance and ensures satisfactory performance results, such as a minimal loss rate and acceptable end-to-end delay. The optimization model also considers minimizing the SA-TCP scheme deployment cost by balancing the number of SA-TCP aggregators and the link bandwidth, while still satisfying performance requirements.

Dissertação de Mestrado Integrado em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores apresentada à Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia
Abstract:Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is one of the key elements of the Smart Grid, allowing bidirectional communication between customers'smart meters and the power grid concessionaire. Measurement information from customers in a region is concentrated in intermediate points called aggregators The aggregators forward this information to the Central Processing System (SCP), where it is processed. The location of the aggregators is one of the biggest challenges in Smart Grid planning, often resulting in an NP-complete problem. This dissertation aims to determine the best location for the aggregators in the Smart Grid and to define which smart meter-aggregator connections should be done in order to minimize the total network cost (installation cost of each aggregator and the cost of its connection to the smart meters and the SCP). To solve this problem, two different approaches based on mathematical programming models were used: an exact approach and a meta-heuristic approach. IBM ILOG CPLEX Optimization Studio software was used for implementing and solving the exact approach. The meta-heuristic approach was carried out through the implementation of a Genetic Algorithm (GA), using Matlab. The exact approach was applied to seven different scenarios (models A to G), while the meta-heuristic approach was only used to simulate the scenario corresponding to model A (with uncompetitive results in relation to the optimum given by the CPLEX).//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
As infraestruturas de medição avançadas (Advanced Metering Infrastructure - AMI) são um dos principais elementos das redes inteligentes (Smart Grids), permitindo a comunicação bidirecional entre os medidores inteligentes (smart meters) dos clientes e a concessionária da rede. A informação de medição proveniente dos clientes de uma região é concentrada em pontos intermédios, designados por agregadores. Os agregadores encaminham esta informação para o Sistema Central de Processamento (SCP), onde é processada. A localização dos agregadores é um dos maiores desafios no planeamento da Smart Grid, resultando, em geral, num problema NP-completo.Nesta dissertação pretende-se determinar a localização ótima dos agregadores na Smart Grid e definir que ligações smart meter – agregador devem ser feitas, de forma a minimizar o custo total da rede (custo de instalação de cada agregador e custo da sua ligação aos smart meters e ao SCP).Para a resolução deste problema são feitas duas abordagens diferentes baseadas em modelos de programação matemática – uma abordagem exata e outra meta-heurística. Para a implementação da abordagem exata é utilizado o software IBM ILOG CPLEX Optimization Studio. A abordagem meta-heurística foi concretizada através da implementação de um Algoritmo Genético (AG), com recurso ao Matlab. A abordagem exata foi aplicada a sete cenários diferentes (modelos de A a G), enquanto a abordagem meta-heurística foi apenas utilizada para simular o cenário correspondente ao modelo A (com resultados não competitivos em relação aos ótimos dados pelo CPLEX).

abstract: The safety issue in an electrical power distribution system is of critical importance. In some circumstances, even the continuity of service has to be compromised for a situation that can cause a hazard to the public. A downed conductor that creates an electrical path between a current carrying conductor and ground pose a potential lethal hazard to anyone in the near proximity. Electric utilities have yet to find a fully accepted and reliable method for detecting downed conductors even with decades of research. With the entry of more automation and a smarter grid in the different layers of distribution power system supply, new doors are being opened and new feasible solutions are waiting to be explored. The 'big data' and the infrastructures that are readily accessible through the smart metering system is the base of the work and analysis performed in this thesis. In effect, the new technologies and new solutions are an artifact of the Smart Grid effort which has now reached worldwide dimensions. A solution to problems of overhead distribution conductor failures / faults that use simple methods and that are easy to implement using existing and future distribution management systems is presented. A European type distribution system using three phase supply is utilized as the test bed for the concepts presented. Fault analysis is performed on the primary and the secondary distribution system using the free downloadable software OpenDSS. The outcome is a set of rules that can be implemented either locally or central using a voltage based method. Utilized in the distribution management systems the operators will be given a powerful tool to make the correct action when a situation occurs. The test bed itself is taken from an actual system in Norway.
Dissertation/Thesis
Masters Thesis Electrical Engineering 2014