Security architecture of the OGEMA 2.0 home energy management system

OGEMA 2.0 is an ongoing research project with the aim to specify an open platform for home and building energy management systems and gateways. Part of the project is to develop an open-source reference implementation of the specification. An essential property of the framework is to provide a secure runtime environment for third-party applications („apps“) that originate from different sources and operate on behalf of different stakeholders (like owners of a building, utility companies or a virtual power plant operators). Access to private information of the customers, the equipment in the building as well as information exchange between applications shall only be possible in a controlled manner. The first part of this article will give an overview of the project goals, architecture and security requirements of OGE-MA 2.0. The second part will discuss the solution chosen for OGEMA. The third part will compare the OGEMA approach with solutions of similar frameworks (especially Google’s Android as an example of a runtime container for arbitrary apps and Microsoft’s research project HomeOS with its specific scope on home automation systems)