Secure Communication in a Distributed Load Management System

Abstract

The transition from the traditional power generation using centralized power plants toward smaller, distributed facilities raises the importance of load management. To establish a balance between production and consumption, they have to be regulated in a dynamic fashion. Intelligent, networked systems are necessary to achieve that goal. A considerable part of the network communication is likely to be conducted over the public Internet, therefore secure communication is an important aspect. In this paper, we discuss the problems of existing systems that do not fulfill current and future security requirements, and we develop an approach that allows secure communication using the WebSocket protocol even when devices considered insecure are involved.