Selecting Privacy Solutions to Prioritise Control in Smart Metering Systems Juan E. Rubio, Cristina Alcaraz, Javier Lopez Department of Computer Science, University of Malaga, Campus de Teatinos s/n, 29071, Malaga, Spain {rubio,alcaraz,jlm}@lcc.uma.es Abstract The introduction of the Smart Grid brings with it several benefits to society, because its bi-directional communication allows both users and utilities to have better control over energy usage. However, it also has some privacy issues with respect to the privacy of the customers when analysing their consumption data. In this paper we review the main privacy-preserving techniques that have been proposed and compare their efficiency, to accurately select the most appropriate ones for undertaking control operations. Both privacy and performance are essential for the rapid adoption of Smart Grid technologies. Keywords: Smart Grid, Data Privacy, Control, and Metering 1 Introduction In comparison with the traditional electric grid, the Smart Grid (SG) enables a more accurate monitoring and prevision of energy consumption for utilities so they can adjust generation and delivery in near real-time. Users also receive detailed consumption reports that can help them to save money by adapting their power usage to price fluctuations. The Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is a smart metering system that makes this possible by processing a huge data collection generated at a high frequency [14]. This information can then be analysed to draw surprisingly accurate conclusions about customers. In order to preserve privacy, consumption data should not be measured. However, this is not feasible: the energy supplier needs to know the sum of the current electricity consumption of all its customers (or a group of them concen- trated in a certain region) primarily to perform monitoring operations and De- mand Response. Secondly, the supplier also needs to collect attributable infor- mation to know the total consumption of a single customer over a given time pe- riod (e.g., a month), in order to calculate the bill. As a result, privacy-preserving techniques must be implemented to prevent the Energy Service Provider (ESP in the following) from checking the current energy consumption of a single cus- tomer. 1 J. E. Rubio, C. Alcaraz, and J. Lopez, “Selecting Privacy Solutions to Prioritise Control in Smart Metering Systems”, The 11th International Conference on Critical Information Infrastructures Security vol. 10242, pp. 176-188, 2017. NICS Lab. Publications: https://www.nics.uma.es/publications