Adopting the cloud to manage the electricity grid

Abstract

Public utilities, such as electricity, telecommunication, natural gas, water or sewage, constitute services whose proper functioning is of paramount importance for the whole society. Among these critical infrastructures, power grid and telecommunication network are, probably, the most critical ones. Their interdependency could exacerbate the consequence of a failure since the telecommunication network devices are powered by the mains, while the nationwide power grid is managed through a SCADA system that relies on the public telecommunication network. Cloud technology could reduce costs and improve performance but its adoption should be cautiously evaluated relatively to a critical infrastructure. We qualitatively discuss the cloud adoption in such a kind of infrastructure. Then, a topological analysis, concerning network reliability and robustness, is performed focusing on the SCADA system of the Italian power transmission network. Results show that a certain cloud configuration could be beneficial for the power transmission network.