“Digital machine identities” can simplify energy transition, increase security – report
Clean Energy Wire
Assigning electronic ID cards to PV arrays, home storage systems, and electric cars – also known as “digital machine identities” – can help to make the energy transition more secure against cyber attacks, according to a report by the German Energy Agency (dena).
Digital machine identities are essentially a unique fingerprint that each individual machine has in order to make it recognisable to other devices. It can that help to improve communication between devices and therefore allow the automatisation of processes like registering a PV array in the official registry, as well as improve cyber security by, for example, recognising that a particular device is owned by the same person or company.
Earlier this year, the Federal Office for Information Security, a government agency, said the increasing digitalisation of the energy system is making it more vulnerable to cyber attacks.
Digital machine identities have already been tested by dena together with partners, demonstrating that the technology can already to be implemented with minimal effort, the report found. The next step at dena is to establish an identity ecosystem for the energy sector that defines rules for digital interactions and strengthens trust between different players in the market.
“We are doing pioneering work internationally and driving forward the development of a European identity ecosystem for industry and the economy,” said Philipp Richard, head of digital technologies and start-up ecosystems at dena.
Digitalisation will be crucial for the next phase of Germany's energy transition, as it offers enormous potential to speed up its economy’s decarbonisation. The country needs a much more flexible and efficient electricity system based on millions of wind and solar installations that can also power cars and heating, for example.
"The success of the energy transition depends largely on a comprehensive digital transformation. Only end-to-end digitalisation, extending to the level of individual devices and systems, will enable this transformation," the dena report states.
