Cyber Threat Defense in Power Grids: Introducing the Grid-Lock Secure-Chain Consensus Framework

Blockchain technology has attracted the curiosity of experts in a variety of sectors, including its potential for Smart Grid (SG) cybersecurity. The study investigates vulnerabilities in smart Direct Current-MicroGrid (DC-MG) systems, particularly community identity servers, which pose a threat to the grid due to the increasing sophistication of existing cybersecurity frameworks, causing delays in real-time activities. The research proposes a novel, grid-lock secure-chain consensus framework to address these issues and improve contemporary power systems’ capacity to defend themselves against cyberattacks. This design makes use of Proof of Vote (PoV), a consensus technique that enables decentralized voting across the network’s meter nodes to reach consensus. For safe identification and transaction validation, every meter node has public and private keys. All information is encrypted before being transmitted to other nodes. The information is kept on a distributed ledger, where the Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA-256) hash technique is used to cryptographically connect each block. Only legitimate blocks are added to the blockchain due to the PoV process, which also maintains separate voting and accounting rights for security. The proposed design increases encryption techniques and decentralizes permission to lessen the possibility of cyberattacks without compromising system performance. The proposed framework achieves a significant improvement, with throughput increased by 53% and latency reduced by 19% compared to conventional consensus mechanisms such as Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) and Proof of Work (PoW). Specifically, the framework demonstrates a throughput of 150 Transactions per second (Tx/s) and a latency of 0.89 seconds, outperforming PBFT’s throughput of 98 Tx/s and latency of 11 seconds, and PoW’s throughput of 120 Tx/s and latency of 1 second. This method represents a major leap in employing blockchain technology for current power system security as it not only strengthens the grid against assaults but also maximizes its resilience and operational efficiency. In particular, results obtained from testing on 118-bus topology setups demonstrate high throughput and low latency, confirming the framework’s suitability for SG networks under high transaction volumes and potential cyber threats.