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Tsinghua Science and Technology 2014, 19(2): 105-120 https://doi.org/10.1109/TST.2014.6787363
Open Access | Issue | Published: 15 April 2014

Energy-Theft Detection Issues for Advanced Metering Infrastructure in Smart Grid

Show Author's Information Rong Jiang( ),  Rongxing Lu,  Ye Wang,  Jun Luo,  Changxiang Shen,  Xuemin (Sherman) Shen
School of Computer, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, China
School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Communication Engineering Research Center, Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen 518055, China
Computing Technology Institute of China Navy, Beijing 100841, China
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, N2L 3G1, Canada
Keywords:
smart grid, Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), security, energy-theft detection
Cite this article:
Jiang R, Lu R, Wang Y, et al. Energy-Theft Detection Issues for Advanced Metering Infrastructure in Smart Grid. Tsinghua Science and Technology, 2014, 19(2): 105-120. https://doi.org/10.1109/TST.2014.6787363
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Abstract Full text About this article

With the proliferation of smart grid research, the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) has become the first ubiquitous and fixed computing platform. However, due to the unique characteristics of AMI, such as complex network structure, resource-constrained smart meter, and privacy-sensitive data, it is an especially challenging issue to make AMI secure. Energy theft is one of the most important concerns related to the smart grid implementation. It is estimated that utility companies lose more than $25 billion every year due to energy theft around the world. To address this challenge, in this paper, we discuss the background of AMI and identify major security requirements that AMI should meet. Specifically, an attack tree based threat model is first presented to illustrate the energy-theft behaviors in AMI. Then, we summarize the current AMI energy-theft detection schemes into three categories, i.e., classification-based, state estimation-based, and game theory-based ones, and make extensive comparisons and discussions on them. In order to provide a deep understanding of security vulnerabilities and solutions in AMI and shed light on future research directions, we also explore some open challenges and potential solutions for energy-theft detection.


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About this article

Energy-Theft Detection Issues for Advanced Metering Infrastructure in Smart Grid

Show Author's information Rong Jiang( ), Rongxing Lu, Ye Wang, Jun Luo, Changxiang Shen, Xuemin (Sherman) Shen
School of Computer, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, China
School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Communication Engineering Research Center, Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen 518055, China
Computing Technology Institute of China Navy, Beijing 100841, China
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, N2L 3G1, Canada

Abstract

With the proliferation of smart grid research, the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) has become the first ubiquitous and fixed computing platform. However, due to the unique characteristics of AMI, such as complex network structure, resource-constrained smart meter, and privacy-sensitive data, it is an especially challenging issue to make AMI secure. Energy theft is one of the most important concerns related to the smart grid implementation. It is estimated that utility companies lose more than $25 billion every year due to energy theft around the world. To address this challenge, in this paper, we discuss the background of AMI and identify major security requirements that AMI should meet. Specifically, an attack tree based threat model is first presented to illustrate the energy-theft behaviors in AMI. Then, we summarize the current AMI energy-theft detection schemes into three categories, i.e., classification-based, state estimation-based, and game theory-based ones, and make extensive comparisons and discussions on them. In order to provide a deep understanding of security vulnerabilities and solutions in AMI and shed light on future research directions, we also explore some open challenges and potential solutions for energy-theft detection.

Keywords: smart grid, Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), security, energy-theft detection

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Publication history

Received: 25 January 2014
Accepted: 26 January 2014
Published: 15 April 2014
Issue date: April 2014

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© The author(s) 2014

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by China Scholarship Council, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 61170261 and 61202369), and NSERC, Canada.

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