Enhanced RSA key encryption application for metering data in smart grid

Purpose Digitizing of the electrical power grid promotes the advantages of efficient energy management alongside the possibilities of major vulnerabilities. A typical inadequacy that needs critical attention to ensure the seamless operation of the smart grid system remains in the data transmission between consumer premises smart devices and the utility centres. Many researches aim at establishing security protocols to ensure secure and efficient energy management resulting in perfect demand-supply balance. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the authentication of the smart meter data has been proposed with enhanced Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) key encryption using an efficient way of generating large prime numbers. The trapdoor one-way function applied in the RSA algorithm makes it almost impossible for the reverse engineering attempts of cracking the key pair. Findings The algorithm for generating prime numbers has been tested both with the convention method and with the enhanced method of including a low-level primality test with a first few hundred primes. The combination of low-level and high-level primality tests shows an improvement in execution time of the algorithm. Originality/value There is a considerable improvement in the time complexities when using the combination method. This efficient generation of prime numbers can be successfully applied to the smart meter systems, thereby increasing the strength and speed of the key encryption.