Cybersecurity Power System Study with Advanced CPS Sim Tools
White Papers
The evolution of traditional electric grids toward “smarter” grids involves the deployment of novel widearea and/or local communication infrastructure to facilitate new applications, such as advanced protection and control (P&C), Energy Management Systems (EMS), Microgrid Control Systems (MGCS), Wide-Area Protection, Monitoring and Control System (WAMPACS), and distributed control. These communicationbased applications, however, introduce new risks due to their increased dependency on communication infrastructure, which is susceptible to cyber threats1. In addition, the participation of prosumers (producers/consumers) at the distribution level may also expose the grid to cyber vulnerabilities. This is since prosumers will likely be interconnected to the main grid through a shared communication infrastructure, causing more potential cyber risk. Thus, it is important to study the grid along with its communication systems as a whole Cyber-Physical System (CPS) to evaluate potential risks of critical failure and blackouts.