Implementation and Analysis of a Secure Communication with SunSpec Modbus and Transport Layer Security Protocols for Short-Term Energy Management Systems
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The growth of Renewable Distributed Generations (RDG) presents both a solution to common problems of traditional energy sources - such as the environmental impact and losses in transmission and distribution - and a challenge to appropriately control a large number of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs). The feasibility of such control depends on adequate communication protocols that, among other features, must address the security requirements of DER applications. This paper analyses the impact of a TLS-based SunSpec Modbus implementation on connection time and bulk data transfer when applied to short-term energy management systems. The protocol was tested with synthetic benchmarks, like the PI-MBUS-300, and was also deployed to the pilot-scaled short-term energy management system in the Pato Branco campus of the Federal University of Technology – Paraná. The results should be sufficient to characterize Modbus/TLS in normal operation with multiple cipher suites, as well as under abnormal situations that may cause frequent reconnections, like an unstable network.
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Modbus/TCP with TLS provides a standards-based security layer that ensures integrity and supports authentication.
“The main advantage of Modbus/TCP with TLS is that it provides a standards-based security layer, ensuring integrity and supporting authentication [21].”
From Encryption for Industrial Control Systems: A Survey of Application-Level and Network-Level Approaches in Smart Grids (2026) · cites this paper as [21]
Enforcing TLS on SunSpec Modbus/TCP embedded controllers increases average per-request latency from around 1 ms to approximately 1.6-1.8 ms, depending on the cipher suite.
“Recent measurements of Sun-Spec Modbus/TCP over TLS on embedded controllers report that enforcing TLS increases average per-request latency from around 1 ms to approximately 1.6-1.8ms, depending on the cipher suite [21].”
From Encryption for Industrial Control Systems: A Survey of Application-Level and Network-Level Approaches in Smart Grids (2026) · cites this paper as [21]
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- Authors
- Ferst, M. K., Weber Denardin, G., Marcelo de Oliveira Stein, C., Giovani Carati, E., Patric da Costa, J., & Cardoso, R.
- Affiliations
- Instituto de Pesquisas Eldorado (BR)
- Department of Electrical Engineering, Federal University of Technology–Paraná, Pato Branco, Brazil
- Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (BR)
- ORCID
- Venue
- IEEE Access
- Published
- 2025
- Volume
- 13
- Pages
- 105183-105198
- ISSN
- 2169-3536 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4411142920
- Cited by
- 5
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 2
- FWCI
- 1.85
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- IEEE Access (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Research and Development Project granted by Brazilian Electricity Regulatory Agency (ANEEL) and Companhia Paranaense de Energia (PD 2866-0468/2017)
- Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos
- Secretaria de Estado da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior do Paranã
- Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientãfico e Tecnológico (405700/2021-0, 306633/2022-1, 444373/2024-1)
- Fundação Araucária
- Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior-CAPES (Research Organization Registry (ROR) identifier (00x0ma614)
- Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná
- Novos Arranjos de Pesquisa e Inovação (NAPI) Sudoeste
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Control and Systems Engineering › Smart Grid Security and Resilience
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Power Systems and Technologies
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Smart Grid and Power Systems
- Keywords
- Transport Layer Security, secure communication, distributed energy resources, distributed renewable energy, protocol security, cipher suites, connection time, bulk data transfer, network instability
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