Annotated Bibliography

4 IEEE power & energy magazine march/april 2006

E EVENTS OF RECENT VINTAGE IN North America, namely the terrorist attack of 11 September 2001 and the August 2003 Northeast U.S./Canada blackout, have focused new attention on infrastructure security in the United States as well as the rest of the world. Electricity, telephone, water, the Inter- net, and other networks are subject to threat and all possess vulnerabilities that are difficult to absolutely defend.

Deregulation and competition results in multiple energy producers sharing the same distribution network, but it is now a network that lacks the capacity or margin to meet anticipated demand. Investment in research, devel- opment, and maintenance in the North American electrical grid continue to decline. The vulnerability of the grid has also significantly increased due to operation closer to capacity and the nonhypothetical nature of terrorism. Increased stress on the energy infra- structure is also the result of additional factors such as dependencies on adja- cent power grids, telecommunications, markets, and computer networks. In addition, reliable electric service is critically dependent on the ability of the entire grid to instantaneously change conditions. And, it should be noted that the increased use of automa- tion raises yet other issues resulting from reduced personnel for protection and interconnection of systems with public data networks.

As a footnote to the introduction of our issue’s focus, I offer that the sub- ject of infrastructure security was also

inherent in the article “Toward a Smart Grid: Power Delivery for the 21st Cen- tury,” by Amin and Wollenberg, pub- lished in our September/October 2005 issue. That contribution, also available on the IEEE Power Engineering Soci- ety (PES) Web site, may be considered in addition to the “For Further Read- ing” references that follow the articles in this issue.

I am grateful to Robert Schainker of EPRI for agreeing to oversee the effort required to produce the articles that define the focus of this issue and for his support in producing the issue.

Security Issues Our lead feature article by Robert Schainker, John Douglas, and Thomas Kropp is “Electric Utility Responses to Grid Security Issues.” The article

attempts to define the challenges that the electric utility faces in light of multiple governmental requirements that sometimes overlap. The authors specifically look at the cyberthreat as well as ongoing industry efforts to enhance security. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has been in the forefront of the U.S. utilities response, and the authors describe the latest effort, the PowerSec Initiative, which initially brings together EPRI staff, a variety of industry organiza- tions, and several industry experts to address the cyberthreat issue as it could impact electric utility opera- tional and control equipment. The ini- tiative will evaluate the industry’s current cyberattack readiness, identify gaps in this readiness, and specify existing best practices for filling these

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gaps. It will focus first on superviso- r y c o n t r o l a n d d a t a a c q u i s i t i o n (SCADA) systems and energy man- agement systems (EMS), both of which have been identified as criti- cal systems to secure. It should be noted that information gleaned from the PowerSec vulnerability assess- ment process is intended to comple- m e n t o n g o i n g s e c u r i t y s t a n d a r d s development by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

“Rapidly Deployable Recovery Transformers” by Craig L. Stiege- meier and Ramsis Girgis makes the strong point that many utilities are replacing transformers on their sys- tems at a rate that could result in t r a n s f o r m e r a g e ex t e n d i n g w e l l beyond 100 years. While almost everyone agrees that this will have to change, it is not changing rapidly and

power transformer ages of 40 or more years are quite common. As part of the Infrastructure Security Initiative (ISI), EPRI funded a project with ABB’s Power Transformers group, whose objective was to examine the feasibility of creating a population of rapidly deployable Recovery Trans- formers to help respond to and quick- ly recover from a major attack on the transmission system’s power trans- formers. The primary objective of this effort was to design, manufac- ture, and store Recovery Transform- e r s a s a s h o r t - t e r m s t o p g a p t o minimize the impact of electric sup- ply interruptions. A plan was also put i n t o p l a c e t o r a p i d l y m ove t h e s e transformers from a secure storage location to the impacted substation. Four key functional requirements were identified.

1) The transformers had to be extremely flexible in application

since they are potentially replac- ing a wide variety of designs on many different power systems.

2) The time spent transporting the t r a n s f o r m e r t o t h e s i t e a n d a s s e m b l i n g t h e t r a n s f o r m e r must be minimized.

3) T h e R e c ove r y Tr a n s f o r m e r design must be rugged and reli- a b l e f o r t h e d u r a t i o n o f t h e transformer service life.

4) The time to manufacture a Recovery Transformer must be as short as possible.

T h e wo r k t h a t h a s e n s u e d i s described in detail and the efforts completed to date clearly demonstrate the feasibility of the Recovery Trans- former concept as envisioned. With care, a reasonable number of Recov- ery Transformers of the different stan- dard designs can be manufactured and located near key transmission inter- sections in secure locations. These

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Recovery Transformers can be placed into service in a very short period of time, as compared to normal trans- former replacements, allowing for a response as short as one or two days if appropriate assets and trained per- sonnel are available.

Before deregulation, electric utili- ties operated information networks for both business and operational functions. Deregulation has resulted in the distribution of information functions from what was a vertically i n t eg r a t e d c o m p a ny t h a t d i r e c t l y impacted the operation of the data networks and their security. These systems were designed without con- sideration for security and were not capable of adding security as a retro- fit. The article “System Threats and Vulnerabilities” by Thomas Kropp

reviews the concerns related to the security of the information networks used to communicate with supervi- sory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and distributed control systems (DCS) applications. Today’s S C A DA a n d c o n t r o l s y s t e m s a r e subject to vulnerabilities due to a number of factors, including busi- ness needs brought on by deregula- tion and a movement toward using common operating systems and net- w o r k i n g p r o t o c o l s . T h e r i s e o f organized criminal activity on the Inter- n e t a n d o f c ove r t , cyber operations has c o m p o u n d e d t h e threat. However, the U . S . g o v e r n m e n t and industry, some- times in partnership and sometimes inde- pendently, are work- ing to mitigate these vulnerabilities and provide the means to secure our infrastructure.

Today’s constantly changing elec- tric grid is managed by operators using energy management systems (EMS) to perform network and load monitoring, perform necessary grid control actions, and manage grid power flows within their terroritory or region of responsibility. That premise sets the stage for the article “Real- Time Dynamic Security Assessment” by Robert Schainker, Peter Miller, Wadad Dubbelday, Peter Hirsch, and Guorui Zhang. The development of dynamic security assessment (DSA) software analyses will permit the study of the transient and dynamic responses to a large number of poten- tial system disturbances (contingen- cies) in a transient time frame, which is normally up to about 10 s after a disturbance/outage. If the DSA calcu- lation could be completed in less than 10 min, operators who control the grid during emergency conditions would have sufficient time to take appropriate corrective or preventive control actions to handle the critial events that may cause instability, or

c a s c a d i n g o u t a g e s . T h e a u t h o r s d e s c r i b e t h e m e t h o d s a n d r e s u l t s obtained in developing a real-time version of the DSA tool. They also provide a description of the DSA soft- ware package generally used by the U.S. electric utility industry and then discuss a method to dramatically reduce the computation time to per- form DSA calculations. The results from the application of this new ver- sion of DSA are then presented, using a large utility system as an example.

“Resource Ade- quacy” by Jian Yang is presented on behalf of the Energy Supply Working Group of the Power Systems Planning and Implementation Committee. The arti- cle summarizes the presentations and

discussions that occurred at a panel session (chaired by Jian) of the same name held at the San Francisco Gener- al Meeting in June 2005. The session was very well attended due to its time- ly subject as well as the quality of its organizers and participants. It is my considered opinion that this type of session summary is indeed best treated in a publication such as IEEE Power & Energy Magazine; other such con- tributions from PES technical commit- tees are warmly welcomed.

Matters of Universal and Local Importance Nima Amjady and Meisam Hemmati of Semnan University in Iran are the authors of this issue’s “The Business Scene” column. Once again we realize the universality of our industry as well as the commonality of its technology and, yes, even its business environment in a world where political systems vary dramatically. The column presents a comprehensive overview of a deregu- lated industry as a market, looking at many parameters that offer differing control mechanisms for pricing. An overview of uniform pricing and mar- ket clearing price (MCP) predictions

Today’s SCADA and control systems are subject to vulnerabilities.

are presented, as is the alternative of pay-as-bid pricing.

A New York City Fifth Avenue mansion hardly appears to be a sub- j e c t t h a t m i g h t b e o f i n t e r e s t t o Power & Energy readers, but our his- tory column is about one such man- s i o n . T h e B r o k aw M a n s i o n , w a s home to the Institute of Radio Engi- neers (IRE) for many years. After its merger with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) in 1 9 6 3 t o f o r m I E E E , t h e bu i l d i n g remained in service until early 1965 w h e n i t wa s s o l d a n d r a z e d . T h e story of the mansion itself and its r e l a t i o n t o I E E E i s a fa s c i n a t i n g story and one worth relating for our readers. Mary Ann Hoffman of the IEEE History Center has document- ed that story, and it was published in

t h e P ro c e e d i n g s o f t h e I E E E i n November 2005. Our resident histo- rian Carl Sulzberger has reproduced it in this issue, with some editorial additions and minor modifications. I believe that the juxtaposition of New Yo r k C i t y a n d I E E E h i s t o r y w i l l make for very interesting reading.

As introduction to our issue’s “In My View” column, which has been authored by a longtime and esteemed friend, Hyde Merrill, I would share with you that Hyde and his wife Rox- anne have recently returned to the United States after leading the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints mission in Argentina for the past three y e a r s . A s m a ny o f u s a r e awa r e , Argentina suffered from a severe eco- nomic disturbance during that period, and the experience left the Merrills

with profound thoughts about life in p o o r e r c o u n t r i e s . I n h i s c o l u m n , H y d e — a p p l y i n g t e c h n i c a l b a c k - ground in conjunction with humanis- tic and social concerns—looks deeply into the inequity that results when a c o m m o n p ow e r s y s t e m d e s i g n i s applied throughout the world. Indeed his initial premise is that in today’s world, electricity—like food and shelter—is a basic human right. Hyde reviews the inequities of the situa- tion, offers solutions that can allevi- ate conditions, and has opened a dialogue which will hopefully pro- vide opportunities to meet the needs o f t h e d eve l o p i n g w o r l d . T h i s thoughtful and provocative work is worthy of further discussion, and I a m h o p e f u l t h a t o u r r e a d e r s w i l l respond accordingly.

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