SECURING THE ENERGY GRID WITH BLOCKCHAINS On a frigid day in December 2015, more than 230,000
The researchers will be creating a simulated SCADA
Ukrainian residents lost power for an afternoon. Lights went
system and integrating it onto an eight-node blockchain.
out, televisions shut off, and heaters seized up. Their power
Eight was chosen as the number of nodes just for the
grid had been hacked.
purposes of experiment, Panat says, but the blockchain can
The threat malicious hackers pose to the energy grid is a legitimate one, and that’s precisely why the U.S.
easily scale, and at an affordable cost. “A simple laptop computer—just $200 or $300—can be
Department of Energy has awarded two Carnegie Mellon
a node on this blockchain,” says Panat. “You don’t need a
researchers a $400,000 grant to strengthen grid security
fancy workstation or supercomputer to do this.”
using blockchain technology. “Hackers were able to attack the Ukranian power plants
Although blockchains’ most popular applications— serving as the infrastructure for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin
by exploiting a central control system,” says Rahul Panat,
or Ethereum—involve a public ledger that anyone can see,
an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical
Goyal and Panat’s technology will be mainly private, hiding
Engineering. “If that control system was placed on a
critical information from everyone—even those inside the
distributed network—a blockchain—then in theory, pulling
company—except for a few authorized employees.
off an attack would have been much more difficult.” Panat’s expertise lies in high temperature sensor networks, much like those that feed information to the Supervisor Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system
“This hierarchical access control will protect against insider threats in addition to outsiders trying to attack the grid,” Goyal says. The researchers are targeting to conclude this project by
power plants employ to make decisions such as how
the end of summer 2021, and at that point, they’ll hand a
much power to generate and where to send it. Panat will
complete prototype of their eight-node blockchain system
be working alongside Vipul Goyal, an associate professor
to the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), a
in the Computer Science Department with chops in
national lab under the Department of Energy Office of
blockchain technologies.
Fossil Energy.
“SCADA is a huge center point for attack from an
“If this project was sponsored by one single power
attacker,” Goyal says. “But if the data from the sensors is
generation company, then the solution might remain right
placed on a blockchain, then the attacker does not have to
there,” Panat says. “By working with a national lab like NETL,
attack a single computer, but multiple computers—maybe
it can be a benefit to the entire nation.”
tens or hundreds of computers depending on how large the blockchain is.”
