Secure plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) Charging in a smart grid network

Charging of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) exposes smart grid systems and their users to different kinds of security and privacy attacks. Hence, a secure charging protocol is required for PEV charging. Existing PEV charging protocols are usually based on insufficiently represented and simplified charging models that do not consider the user's charging modes (charging at a private location, charging as a guest user, roaming within one's own supplier network or roaming within other suppliers' networks). However, the requirement for charging protocols depends greatly on the user's charging mode. Consequently, available solutions do not provide complete protocol specifications. Moreover, existing protocols do not support anonymous user authentication and payment simultaneously. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive end-to-end charging protocol that addresses the security and privacy issues in PEV charging. The proposed protocol uses nested signatures to protect users' privacy from external suppliers, their own suppliers and third parties. Our approach supports anonymous user authentication, anonymous payment, as well as anonymous message exchange between suppliers within a hierarchical smart grid architecture. We have verified our protocol using the AVISPA software verification tool and the results showed that our protocol is secure and works as desired.