A security mechanism of Smart Grid AMI network through smart device mutual authentication

AMI (Advanced Meter Infrastructure), vital component to build next generation electricity grid, is an informatization service infrastructure for electricity between consumers and electricity companies. To manage the quantity of electricity consumed, AMI is composed with bidirectional communication Smart Devices. Authentication mechanism is necessary to have the access control of Smart Devices in Smart Grid communication environment. However, current ID-based authentication mechanism does not offer mutual authentication between User Device and Smart Meter. PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) in Smart Grid gives a guarantee for security, but the number of exchanged data to generate certificate for all Smart Devices is concerned. This paper proposes to couple ID-based authentication and PKI mechanism, which offers mutual authentication between Smart Devices. This proposed mechanism reduces the number of message exchanges and ultimately provides secure communication environments to Smart Devices.