Quantum-Secure Microgrid
It addresses security for microgrid operators in the quantum era, but is incremental as it applies known QKD to a specific domain.
This paper tackles the vulnerability of existing microgrid communication to quantum computer attacks by using quantum key distribution (QKD), resulting in a proposed architecture, testbed, and strategy that improve cyberattack resilience, with test results providing resources for building quantum-secure microgrids.
Existing microgrid communication relies on classical public key systems, which are vulnerable to attacks from quantum computers. This paper uses quantum key distribution (QKD) to solve these quantum-era microgrid challenges. Specifically, this paper makes the following novel contributions: 1) it offers a QKD-based microgrid communication architecture for microgrids; 2) it shows how to build a quantum-secure microgrid testbed in an RTDS environment; 3) it develops a key pool sharing (KPS) strategy to improve the cyberattack resilience of the QKD-based microgrid; and 4) it analyzes the impacts of critical QKD parameters with the testbed. Test results provide insightful resources for building a quantum-secure microgrid.