Secrecy Performance Analysis of RIS-Aided Smart Grid Communications

A smart grid (SG) is an advanced electrical grid that enhances the efficiency and reliability of traditional power grids. Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) have been recently proposed to enhance communication performance in the SG. However, the communication links between different SG components could suffer from eavesdropping and unauthorized access, which makes physical layer security (PLS) a promising solution for addressing these concerns. In this article, we focus on exploring the effect of applying RIS on enhancing the PLS performance of SG communications. Specifically, we consider an RIS with reflecting elements besides a smart meter, a neighborhood gateway (NG), and an eavesdropper to develop a smart environment in the SG to improve PLS performance in terms of secrecy outage probability (SOP) and average secrecy capacity (ASC). For this purpose, we first derive a probability density function and a cumulative distribution function for the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at both the NG and the eavesdropper. Then, we derive closed-form expressions of SOP and ASC to evaluate the impact of various system parameters on the secrecy performance of RIS-aided SG communications. Furthermore, considering the significance of system behavior under high-SNR conditions, we conduct an asymptotic analysis of the SOP and ASC. Finally, we apply the Monte Carlo simulation to validate the analytical results. Our results indicate that using the RIS can significantly enhance the secrecy performance of SG communications compared to the conventional SG scenarios without the RIS.