An Adaptive Approach to Energy Security and Assurance
- Raytheon Network Centric Systems
- ORNL
The North American power network has been called the world s largest, most complex machine. This network represents an enormous continent-wide investment, including over 15,000 generators in 10,000 power plants, and miles of transmission lines, distribution networks, and control systems. It has long been recognized that existing power-delivery systems are vulnerable to natural disasters and adversarial attack. The next generation of control systems must simultaneously protect against these disruptions while integrating new generation sources and maintaining active, automated control of the grid. The grid s interconnectedness needed to provide smart grid control also increases its vulnerability to interconnect-wide disruptions that are initiated locally. While strong centralized control is essential to reliable operations, this control requires multiple, high-data-rate, two-way communication links, a powerful central computing facility, and an elaborate operation-control center, all of which present vulnerabilities. It is clearly impossible to completely protect such a widespread and complex system. The key to maintaining the integrity of this network lies in the ability to identify its critical elements and to then effectively protect these elements. This identification and targeted protection will enable parts of the network to remain operational and even automatically reconfigure in the event of local failures or threats of failure, providing dependable continuity of service. The bold concept proposed here is the communication, predictive models and fast controls that eliminate the need to protect all components from emergent contingencies, but to reconfigure actively to maintain critical functions. The transformation from laboratory applications to larger than micro grid areas will require the next generation of energy technologies.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- OE USDOE - Office of Electric Transmission and Distribution
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC05-00OR22725
- OSTI ID:
- 961772
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Workshop on Future Directions in Cyber-physical Systems Security, Newark, NJ, NJ, USA, 20090722, 20090724
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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