A Verifiable Trust-Based CP-ABE Access Control Scheme for Cloud-Assisted Renewable Energy Systems

Renewable Energy Systems (RES) provide a sustainable solution to climate warming and environmental pollution by enhancing stability and reliability through status acquisition and analysis on cloud platforms and intelligent processing on edge servers (ES). However, securely distributing encrypted data stored in the cloud to terminals that meet decryption requirements has become a prominent research topic. Additionally, managing attributes, including addition, deletion, and modification, is a crucial issue in the access control scheme for RES. To address these security concerns, a trust-based ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption (CP-ABE) device access control scheme is proposed for RES (TB-CP-ABE). This scheme effectively manages the distribution and control of encrypted data on the cloud through robust attribute key management. By introducing trust management mechanisms and outsourced decryption technology, the ES system can effectively assess and manage the trustworthiness of terminal devices, ensuring that only trusted devices can participate in data exchange and access sensitive information. Besides, the ES system dynamically evaluates trust scores to set decryption trust thresholds, thereby regulating device data access permissions and enhancing the system’s security. To validate the security of the proposed TB-CP-ABE against chosen plaintext attacks, a comprehensive formal security analysis is conducted using the widely accepted random oracle model under the decisional q-Bilinear Diffie-Hellman Exponent (q-BDHE) assumption. Finally, comparative analysis with other schemes demonstrates that the TB-CP-ABE scheme cuts energy/communication costs by 43%, and scales well with rising terminals, maintaining average latency below 50 ms, ensuring real-time service feasibility. The proposed scheme not only provides new insights for the secure management of RES but also lays a foundation for future secure energy solutions.