Key management solutions in the smart grid environment

In the last few years, we have witnessed a growing interest and increasing investments in smart grid technologies around the world. One of the key characteristics of the smart grid is its support for bi-directional information flow between the customer's premise and the utility provider using Internet Protocol-based technologies. The bi-directional nature of information flow has however opened up various security and privacy challenges which are being addressed by many recently proposed security solutions. Key management is often an important component of many of these solutions. We review recently proposed key management solutions aimed for the smart grid environment and highlight their practical implications along with their benefits and shortcoming.