Cyber-Attacks and Mitigation in Blockchain Based Transactive Energy Systems

Power grids are undergoing major changes due to the rapid adoption of intermittent renewable energy resources and the increased availability of energy storage devices. These trends drive smart-grid operators to envision a future where peer-to-peer energy trading occurs within microgrids, leading to the development of Transactive Energy Systems. Blockchains have garnered significant interest from both academia and industry for their potential application in decentralized TES, in large part due to their high level of resilience. In this paper, we introduce a novel class of attacks against blockchain based TES, which target the gateways that connect market participants to the system. We introduce a general model of blockchain based TES and study multiple threat models and attack strategies. We also demonstrate the impact of these attacks using a testbed based on GridLAB-D and a private Ethereum network. Finally, we study how to mitigate these attack.