Exploring Blockchain-Secured Data Validation in Smart Meter Readings

Current resource consumption monitoring systems such as utility meters allow for easy manipulation to give incorrect readings and generate corrupt bills leading to huge financial losses for utility companies. In order to limit this practice, the present work proposes the use of smart meters in tandem with an Ethereum-based blockchain to secure utility (consumption) data. Electricity generation and smart metering is taken as case-study and the proposed design is benchmarked in terms of time complexity, consensus algorithms, and security to ascertain optimal blockchain parameters for practical deployments. Given the relatively nascent and un-tested existing blockchain communication protocols, a custom TCP-based protocol is also developed to address additional re-validation requirements of the metering data exchanged between the blockchain nodes. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the proposed approach highlights a significant reduction in any human interference and errors that may lead to misappropriations in consumer metering and adds a greater degree of robustness to the billing process for the benefit of utility companies.