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IEEE Power Engineering Society General Meeting

Quantum-Secure Networked Microgrids

Zefan Tang, Yanyuan Qin, Zimin Jiang, Walter O. Krawec, Peng Zhang

Published Aug 2, 2020• 19 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The classical key distribution systems used for data transmission in networked microgrids (NMGs) rely on mathematical assumptions, which however can be broken by attacks from quantum computers. This paper addresses this quantum-era challenge by using quantum key distribution (QKD). Specifically, the novelty of this paper includes 1) a QKD-enabled communication architecture it devises for NMGs, 2) a real-time QKD- enabled NMGs testbed it builds in an RTDS environment, and 3) a novel two-level key pool sharing (TLKPS) strategy it designs to improve the system resilience against cyberattacks. Test results validate the effectiveness of the presented strategy, and provide insightful resources for building quantum-secure NMGs.

DOI
10.1109/pesgm41954.2020.9281884

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The classical key distribution systems used for data transmission in networked microgrids (NMGs) rely on mathematical assumptions, which however can be broken by attacks from quantum computers. This paper addresses this quantum-era challenge by using quantum key distribution (QKD). Specifically, the novelty of this paper includes 1) a QKD-enabled communication architecture it devises for NMGs, 2) a real-time QKD- enabled NMGs testbed it builds in an RTDS environment, and 3) a novel two-level key pool sharing (TLKPS) strategy it designs to improve the system resilience against cyberattacks. Test results validate the effectiveness of the presented strategy, and provide insightful resources for building quantum-secure NMGs.
Existing microgrid communication relies on classical public key systems, which are vulnerable to attacks from quantum computers. This paper uses quantum key distribution (QKD) to solve these quantum-era microgrid challenges. Specifically, this paper makes the following novel contributions: 1) it devises a novel QKD simulator capable of simulating QKD protocols; 2) it offers a QKD-based microgrid communication architecture for microgrids; 3) it shows how to build a quantum-secure microgrid testbed in an RTDS environment; 4) it develops a key pool sharing (KPS) strategy to improve the cyberattack resilience of the QKD-based microgrid; and 5) it analyzes the impacts of critical QKD parameters with the testbed. Test results provide insightful resources for building a quantum-secure microgrid.
The growing demand for microgrids (MGs) and networked microgrids (NMGs) is driven by the prospects of improved reliability of energy supply and enhanced resilience of the energy grid in changing energy demands. The integration of data communications and industrial control systems has enabled NMGs to provide real-time monitoring and refined control for applications such as energy load balancing. These systems rely on current public-key cryptosystems to secure data communications based on certain computational hardness assumptions. However, the advent of quantum computing poses a significant threat to these cryptosystems because quantum algorithms, such as Shor’s algorithm, have demonstrated that quantum computers are capable of cracking these cryptosystems in practical time. To address this emerging challenge, quantum secure technologies such as postquantum cryptography and quantum key distribution are being explored as complementary approaches to achieve quantum-resilient security. This article reviews the ideas of quantum-secured NMGs (QS-NMGs) and identifies the relevant quantum-cryptographic technologies for QS-NMGs. The study will help scientists, engineers, and policymakers identify limitations of the current literature and discover future research avenues.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) has been considered a potent and mature approach to secure communication in the quantum era. However, there exist resilience gaps that hinder the practical usefulness of QKD. This paper improves the resilience of a QKD-based microgrid by leveraging software-defined networking (SDN). Specifically, the following contributions have been made: 1) a novel QKD- and SDN-based communication framework is devised for microgrids; 2) an enhanced QKD simulator (QKDS+) is developed, which can simulate both the number of generated keys and the amount of classical data required, providing a more accurate QKD study in microgrids; 3) an SDN-based resilience enhancement strategy, which incorporates three practical SDN applications, is developed to improve the system's resilience; and 4) a QKD- and SDN-enabled cyber-physical microgrid prototype is built in an RTDS environment using real whitebox SDN switches. Extensive case studies validate the effectiveness and excellent performance of SDN to improve the resilience of QKD-based microgrids in various situations.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) provides a potent solution to securely distribute keys for two parties. However, QKD itself is vulnerable to denial of service (DoS) attacks. A flexible and resilient QKD-enabled networked microgrids (NMs) architecture is needed but does not yet exist. In this article, we present a programmable quantum NMs (PQNMs) architecture. It is a novel framework that integrates both QKD and software-defined networking (SDN) techniques capable of enabling scalable, programmable, quantum-engineered, and ultra-resilient NMs. Equipped with a software-defined adaptive post-processing approach, a two-level key pool sharing strategy and an SDN-enabled event-triggered communication scheme, these PQNMs mitigate the impact of DoS attacks through programmable post-processing and secure key sharing among QKD links, a capability unattainable using existing technologies. Through comprehensive evaluations, we validate the benefits of PQNMs and demonstrate the efficacy of the presented strategies under various circumstances. Extensive results provide insightful resources for building QKD-enabled NMs in practice.
The integration of information and communication technologies has introduced cybersecurity challenges to microgrid (MG) apart from bringing more flexibility, reliability, and resilience. Especially in the upcoming quantum era, the existing cryptographic systems are vulnerable to attacks from quantum computers. Motivated by these challenges, this article proposes a quantum-key-distribution (QKD)-based MG distributed control framework for cybersecurity enhancement. To defend the side-channel attacks and make the framework practical enough for industrial applications, measurement-device-independent QKD (MDI-QKD) is introduced. The following contributions are made in this work. 1) A novel QKD-based quantum-secure control architecture is established to assure the data transmission security in MG distributed control. 2) MDI-QKD with asymmetric protocol is used to form a scalable QKD network for MG control. 3) A method for fast parameter optimization based on deep neural network (DNN) is proposed to adjust the parameters in QKD systems in real-time. Simulations are carried on a 13-bus MG to demonstrate the working principles of the proposed control scheme. The test results also prove the feasibility of the DNN-based parameter optimizer.
The microgrid faces increasingly severe communication security challenges due to its open and highly interactive characteristics. However, the traditional trust architecture cannot cope with the dynamically changing identity authentication requirements, and data transmission based on classical encryption is vulnerable to attacks from quantum computers. Existing quantum-secure microgrid research typically requires both parties to possess full quantum capabilities, which limits its practicality in real-world deployments. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a semi-quantum secure commu nication framework for microgrids. Firstly, a semi-quantum authentication model based on zero-trust architecture is introduced to support dynamic and secure identity verification between the microgrid central controller (MGCC) and distributed energy resources (DERs). Secondly, a semi-quantum key distribution (SQKD) scheme is integrated, requiring only the MGCC to be fully quantum-capable, thereby reducing system complexity. Additionally, a dynamic key provisioning strategy is designed based on DERs' energy characteristics to improve resource efficiency and system security. Experimental results and analysis provide valuable insights for the design and deployment of semi quantum-enabled microgrid communication.