Advanced metering infrastructure(AMI)is a critical part of the smart grid,and ZigBee is playing an increasingly important role in AMI.The cyber security is the prerequisite to ensure the reliable operation of AMI.To guarantee the ZigBee communication security in AMI,a key management scheme based on the elliptic curve cryptosystem(ECC)is proposed.According to the ways of information transformation in AMI,the scheme is categorized as unicast communication key management process and multicast communication key management process.And in the scheme,the selection of elliptic curve,the calculation of ZigBee node’s ECC public key and private key,the establishment and distribution of the link key in unicast communication,and the establishment and distribution of the network key in multicast communication are elaborated.The analysis results show that the proposed key management scheme is secure,and consumes less memory and energy,thus,can meet the demands of communication security of AMI. Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is a critical part of the smart grid, and ZigBee is playing an increasingly important role in AMI. Cyber ​​security is the prerequisite to ensure the reliable operation of AMI.To guarantee the ZigBee communication security in AMI, a key management scheme based on the elliptic curve cryptosystem (ECC) is proposed. According to the ways of information transformation in AMI, the scheme is categorized as unicast communication key management process and multicast communication key management process. And in the scheme, the selection of elliptic curve, the calculation of ZigBee node’s ECC public key and private key, the establishment and distribution of the link key in unicast communication, and the establishment and distribution of the network key in multicast communication are elaborated. the analysis results show that the proposed key management scheme is secure, and consumes less memory and energy, thus, can meet the demands of communication security of AMI.