Risk assessment of a solar attack according to ISO 31000 standard

Abstract

Energy supply remains the greatest challenge for many of Eastern European countries and their economy. In post-soviet and ex-Yugoslavian countries, till today there exists a system where some of the power plants rely on high voltage (HV) and medium voltage (MV) power grids in the process of distribution of electric energy (EE) to final consumers. This makes them vulnerable to solar storms due to HV power transformers which are especially sensitive to geomagnetic induced current (GIC). The acquisition of electrical power infrastructure could put the electrical infrastructure out of service from a couple of months to a year or more. Loss of income, for ordinary families, is a primary hazard of a long power outage. Business continuity of industry and other critical infrastructures (CI) is important in this scenario, but it is a significant challenge for small businesses and enterprises as well. This paper introduces ISO 31000 standard to such scenarios with the primary goal of achieving resilience of companies against such disaster as a new method of vial response to avoid scope of similar hazards.