An internet of things architecture for preserving privacy of energy consumption

Abstract

Energy consumption by residential customers represents today around 30 to 40% of the total consumed energy, with the residential loads often to be charged for significant contribution to the peak demands both seasonal and daily. The integration of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) with power delivery infrastructure into Smart Grid (SG) will highly automate the production, distribution, monitoring and management of electric power, but will also introduce issues regarding consumer privacy. Internet of things (IoT) is an emerging scientific area with many practical applications to a vast variety of domains such as smart cities, home automation, autonomous vehicles, assistive technologies and healthcare. IoT is able to facilitate electric power management, by monitoring and controlling energy production and consumption, leading to significant savings. However, the IoT concept introduces several challenges and questions, with security, privacy and interoperability to be among them. In this paper, we discuss the integration of IoT and Fog computing with power systems towards efficient energy management and we illustrate a solution that preserves consumer privacy in smart grids.