Load Control and Privacy-Preserving Scheme for Data Collection in AMI Networks

Abstract: In Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) systems, smart meters (SM) send fine-grained power consumption information to the utility company, yet this power consumption information can uncover sensitive information about the consumers' lifestyle. To allow the utility company to gather the power consumption information while safeguarding the consumers' privacy, different methods that broadly utilize symmetric key and asymmetric key cryptography operation have been generally utilized. In this paper, we propose an effective method that uses symmetric key cryptography and hashing operation to gather power consumption information. Moreover, provide the utility company with an overview of the type of the appliances used by its power consumer and range of power use. The idea is based on sending cover power consumption information from the smart meters and removes these covers by including every one of the smart meters' messages, with the goal that the utility can take in the accumulated power consumption information, yet cannot take in the individual readings. Our assessments show that the cryptographic operations required in our scheme are substantially more effective than the operations required in other schemes.