Privacy in Local Energy Markets: A Framework for a Self-Sovereign Identity based P2P-Trading Authentication System

The energy sector is part of the critical infrastructure in modern society where security and privacy concerns of the customers of this infrastructure have been well studied and addressed. In the classical power grid, consumers are being supplied by a major power grid operator who has been government-sanctioned and therefore has to adhere to privacy and security guidelines. In recent years, however, with the shift to the usage of renewable energies, new concepts for the trading of energy flexibilities have emerged, that enable consumers with their own energy production to sell their spare energy back to the market. While reducing the load from the grid operators by enabling peer-to-peer trading between grid participants, this comes with new privacy concerns, which have to be addressed and regulated.This work proposes a conceptual framework based on Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) to establish a secure and private peer-to-peer trading system between energy market participants, which provides the participants control over their own digital identity and what data these participants want to share with peers. Furthermore, this work discusses the proposal’s effects and implications on system security and user privacy.