Autonomous and Privacy-preserving Energy Trading Based on Redactable Blockchain in Smart Grid

Abstract

With the development of information and communication technologies in smart grid, peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading for distributed energy resources (DER) has achieved an efficient two-way flow of information and power. The adoption of blockchain technology makes the P2P energy trading more secure and transparent. Considering that users with extra energy may be reluctant to participate in the energy trading due to privacy concerns, many researchers have focused on potential privacy issues. However, most of the existing works are built on top of a semi-decentralized energy blockchain in which only a few certified third-party nodes are authorized to manage and verify transactions - once these authorized nodes are attacked, the system will be threatened. In this paper, we use the Ciphertext Policy Attribute-Based Encryption (CP-ABE) scheme to establish a blockchain based P2P energy trading approach with privacy preservation, which allows peer nodes, including sellers and purchasers, to manage and verify transactions autonomously without needing any additional third-party nodes. In addition, we introduce the redactable blockchain technology into our scheme to ensure users can modify their sensitive information uploaded to the blockchain. Furthermore, we improve the CP-ABE scheme to provide low latency in the system. The experimental evaluations show that our scheme is efficient and practical.