UReum: A Universally Composable Blockchain-Enabled Model for Secure and Privacy-Preserving Data Awareness in Energy Internet

Recent findings show that many energy nodes rely on energy operators for inputs on energy operations. In this paper, we introduce UReum, a universally composable blockchain-enabled secure and privacy-preserving data awareness solution by which energy nodes can provide visibility into energy operations without involving or relying on energy operators and leaking sensitive information in the Energy Internet. In the energy ecosystem, Energy Internet represents an advanced internet-based energy system that aims to enable complex interconnection and interaction amongst energy nodes. UReum consists of a registration protocol $(RPro)$ for assigning a cryptographic identity to an energy node and a data-aware protocol $(DAPro)$ for executing data awareness with the support of a shared secret session key and UReum smart contracts, which facilitate data awareness consensus amongst energy nodes. UReum satisfies Energy Internet’s data awareness security and privacy requirements. The security requirements include correctness of data, assurance of energy node identity, and fairness of data awareness transactions such as energy node registration, while the privacy requirements include anonymity of energy node identity, the confidentiality of data, and unlinkability of data awareness transactions. We evaluate our model with respect to security, privacy, and performance, and the results show that our model is suitable for the Energy Internet. As a proof of concept, we apply our model to mitigate the loss of State Estimator (SE) and loss of Energy Management System (EMS) issues in real-world energy grids.