A Photovoltaic MPPT Charge Controller Real-Time Testbed for Cybersecurity Applications

Conference · Thu Nov 30 04:00:00 EST 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/WCNPS60622.2023.10345118· OSTI ID:2569623

Bagley, Isaac ^[1]; Braasch, Noah ^[1]; Gomez, Pablo ^[1]; Bhattacharjee, Shameek ^[1]

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1. Western Michigan University

The increasing deployment of distributed energy resources (DER) over the last decade is a great ally to combat climate change and strengthen the grid during increasingly common extreme weather events. However, DER systems, combined with the ongoing transition to a digital power grid, also pose substantial cybersecurity threats. One of the most common communication protocols used in DER integration is the Distributed Network Protocol 3 (DNP3), which is known to have many security vulnerabilities. Thus, it is essential to investigate cyberattack behaviors and mitigation on power systems using DNP3. In this paper, we designed and implemented a cybersecurity testbed for a simulated photovoltaic (PV) maximum power point tracking (MPPT) charge controller. Our testbed uses an MPPT charge controller simulated on a Typhoon HIL602+ real-time simulator with a real DNP3 communication connection over TCP/IP, allowing for safe and efficient monitoring and manipulation of data traffic between the simulated hardware and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems.

• Research Organization: Western Michigan University
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER); National Science Foundation
• DOE Contract Number: CR0000029
• OSTI ID: 2569623
• Report Number(s): DOE-WMU-00029-1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
DNP3 protocol
PV system
cybersecurity
real time
testbed