The success of future intelligent power deliver and transmission systems across the globe relies critically on the availability of a fast, calable, and most importantly secure communication infrastructure between the energy producers and consumers. One major obstacle to ensure secure communication among various parties in a smart grid network hinges on the technical and implementation difficulties associated with key distribution in such large-scale network with often-time disinterested consumers. This paper proposes the use of an identity-based signcryption (IBS) system to provide a zero-configuration encryption and authentication solution for end-to-end secure communications. The suitability of employing such identity-based cryptosystems in the context of smart grids is studied from the perspective of security requirements, implementation overhead and ease of management. Using the design and implementation experience of our proposed system as an example, we illustrate that IBS is a viable solution to providing a secure and easy-to-deploy solution with close to zero user setup required.
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