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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
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| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.15239 |
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| _version_ | 1866908598947282944 |
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| author | Zhu, Ziqing |
| author_facet | Zhu, Ziqing |
| contents | The proliferation of distributed energy resources (DERs) and demand-side flexibility has made virtual power plants (VPPs) central to modern grid operation. Yet their end-to-end business pipeline, covering bidding, dispatch, metering, settlement, and archival, forms a tightly coupled cyber-physical-economic system where secure and timely communication is critical. Under the combined stress of sophisticated cyberattacks and extreme weather shocks, conventional cryptography offers limited long-term protection. Quantum key distribution (QKD), with information-theoretic guarantees, is viewed as a gold standard for securing critical infrastructures. However, limited key generation rates, routing capacity, and system overhead render key allocation a pressing challenge: scarce quantum keys must be scheduled across heterogeneous processes to minimize residual risk while maintaining latency guarantees. This paper introduces a quantum-authenticated aggregation and settlement framework for VPPs. We first develop a system-threat model that connects QKD key generation and routing with business-layer security strategies, authentication strength, refresh frequency, and delay constraints. Building on this, we formulate a key-budgeted risk minimization problem that jointly accounts for economic risk, service-level violations, and key-budget feasibility, and reveal a threshold property linking marginal security value to shadow prices. Case studies on a representative VPP system demonstrate that the proposed approach significantly reduces residual risk and SLA violations, enhances key efficiency and robustness, and aligns observed dynamics with the theoretical shadow price mechanism. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_15239 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Quantum-Key-Distribution Authenticated Aggregation and Settlement for Virtual Power Plants Zhu, Ziqing Systems and Control The proliferation of distributed energy resources (DERs) and demand-side flexibility has made virtual power plants (VPPs) central to modern grid operation. Yet their end-to-end business pipeline, covering bidding, dispatch, metering, settlement, and archival, forms a tightly coupled cyber-physical-economic system where secure and timely communication is critical. Under the combined stress of sophisticated cyberattacks and extreme weather shocks, conventional cryptography offers limited long-term protection. Quantum key distribution (QKD), with information-theoretic guarantees, is viewed as a gold standard for securing critical infrastructures. However, limited key generation rates, routing capacity, and system overhead render key allocation a pressing challenge: scarce quantum keys must be scheduled across heterogeneous processes to minimize residual risk while maintaining latency guarantees. This paper introduces a quantum-authenticated aggregation and settlement framework for VPPs. We first develop a system-threat model that connects QKD key generation and routing with business-layer security strategies, authentication strength, refresh frequency, and delay constraints. Building on this, we formulate a key-budgeted risk minimization problem that jointly accounts for economic risk, service-level violations, and key-budget feasibility, and reveal a threshold property linking marginal security value to shadow prices. Case studies on a representative VPP system demonstrate that the proposed approach significantly reduces residual risk and SLA violations, enhances key efficiency and robustness, and aligns observed dynamics with the theoretical shadow price mechanism. |
| title | Quantum-Key-Distribution Authenticated Aggregation and Settlement for Virtual Power Plants |
| topic | Systems and Control |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.15239 |