Grid Security Research Articles

Innovative Microgrid Services and Applications in Electric Grids: Enhancing Energy Management and Grid Integration

Currently, microgrids are a reliable solution for integrating distributed energy resources and managing demand on electricity grids, serving as a pathway towards a responsible energy transition. However, the evolving needs of the sector require specialized approaches to enhance grid flexibility and support the increasing penetration of renewable energy sources and their rising demand. This article explores and characterizes various advanced and innovative services offered by microgrids to improve the resilience, security, and reliability of electricity grids. It analyzes technical advances and novel control methodologies that demonstrate the potential for microgrids beyond mere energy provision. These include ancillary services, services aligned with demand response programs, and advanced asset management and energy resource optimization services. A global case study is conducted to provide a framework for the services that microgrids can provide. The case study validates the efficiency and reliability of electric grids with microgrids and addresses challenges related to their stability and resilience. This research provides a comprehensive perspective on the benefits of implementing microgrids and proposes new guidelines for the deployment of these systems in both urban and rural areas within the framework of energy communities in the Colombian electricity system, emphasizing the need for collaboration among stakeholders to ensure sustainable energy solutions.

A deep reinforcement learning based charging and discharging scheduling strategy for electric vehicles

Grid security is threatened by the uncontrolled access of large-scale electric vehicles (EVs) to the grid. The scheduling problem of EVs charging and discharging is described as a Markov decision process (MDP) to develop an efficient charging and discharging scheduling strategy. Furthermore, a deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based model-free method is suggested to address such issue. The proposed method aims to enhance EVs charging and discharging profits while reducing drivers' electricity anxiety and ensuring grid security. Drivers' electricity anxiety is described by fuzzy mathematical theory, and analyze the effect of EV current power and remaining charging time on it. Variable electricity pricing is calculated by real-time residential load. A dynamic charging environment is constructed considering the stochasticity of electricity prices, driver’s behavior, and residential load. A soft actor-critic (SAC) framework is used to train the agent, which learns the optimal charging and discharging scheduling strategies by interacting with the dynamic charging environment. Finally, simulation with actual data is used to verify that the suggested approach can reduce drivers' charging costs and electricity anxiety while avoiding transformer overload.

Highly Sensitive Fiber Optic Current Sensors with Integrated λ/4 Retarder

ABSTRACTFiber optic current sensors have made unprecedented contributions to the safety and security of power grids. The λ/4 retarder, as a key component for generating circular polarization, can significantly enhance the performance of fiber optic current sensors (FOCS) due to its superior characteristics. However, traditional methods of fabricating homemade λ/4 retarders have inherent flaws. This study replaced the traditional λ/4 retarder in the all‐fiber current sensor with an integrated λ/4 retarder, which is proposed to convert linearly polarized light into circularly polarized light by controlling different spin rates of the spun fiber. The current sensitivity was increased from 0.235 to 0.404 mV/mA, and the noise was suppressed.

Cloud IaaS Optimization Using Machine Vision at the IoT Edge and the Grid Sensing Algorithm.

Security grids consisting of High-Definition (HD) Internet of Things (IoT) cameras are gaining popularity for organizational perimeter surveillance and security monitoring. Transmitting HD video data to cloud infrastructure requires high bandwidth and more storage space than text, audio, and image data. It becomes more challenging for large-scale organizations with massive security grids to minimize cloud network bandwidth and storage costs. This paper presents an application of Machine Vision at the IoT Edge (Mez) technology in association with a novel Grid Sensing (GRS) algorithm to optimize cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) resource allocation, leading to cost minimization. Experimental results demonstrated a 31.29% reduction in bandwidth and a 22.43% reduction in storage requirements. The Mez technology offers a network latency feedback module with knobs for transforming video frames to adjust to the latency sensitivity. The association of the GRS algorithm introduces its compatibility in the IoT camera-driven security grid by automatically ranking the existing bandwidth requirements by different IoT nodes. As a result, the proposed system minimizes the entire grid's throughput, contributing to significant cloud resource optimization.

ETLSH-YOLO: An Edge–Real-Time Transmission Line Safety Hazard Detection Method

Using deep learning methods to detect potential safety hazards in transmission lines is the mainstream method for power grid security monitoring. However, the existing model is too complex to adapt to edge device deployment and real-time detection. Therefore, an edge–real-time transmission line safety hazard detection method (ETLSH-YOLO) was proposed to reduce the model’s complexity and improve the model’s robustness. Firstly, a re-parameterized Ghost efficient layer aggregation network (RepGhostCSPELAN) was designed to effectively fuse the feature information of different layers while enhancing the model’s expression ability and reducing the number of model parameters and floating-point operations. Then, a spatial channel decoupled downsampling block (CSDovn) was designed to reduce computational redundancy and improve the computational efficiency of the model. Then, coordinate attention (CA) was added in the process of multi-scale feature fusion to suppress the interference of complex background and improve the global perception ability of the model object. Finally, the Mish activation function was used to improve the network’s training speed, convergence, and generalization ability. The experimental results show that the mAP50 of this model improved by 1.73% compared with the baseline model, and the number of parameters and floating-point operations were reduced by 33.96% and 22.22%, respectively. This model lays the foundation for solving the dilemma of edge device deployment.

Total Power Factor Smart Contract with Cyber Grid Guard Using Distributed Ledger Technology for Electrical Utility Grid with Customer-Owned Wind Farm

In modern electrical grids, the numbers of customer-owned distributed energy resources (DERs) have increased, and consequently, so have the numbers of points of common coupling (PCC) between the electrical grid and customer-owned DERs. The disruptive operation of and out-of-tolerance outputs from DERs, especially owned DERs, present a risk to power system operations. A common protective measure is to use relays located at the PCC to isolate poorly behaving or out-of-tolerance DERs from the grid. Ensuring the integrity of the data from these relays at the PCC is vital, and blockchain technology could enhance the security of modern electrical grids by providing an accurate means to translate operational constraints into actions/commands for relays. This study demonstrates an advanced power system application solution using distributed ledger technology (DLT) with smart contracts to manage the relay operation at the PCC. The smart contract defines the allowable total power factor (TPF) of the DER output, and the terms of the smart contract are implemented using DLT with a Cyber Grid Guard (CGG) system for a customer-owned DER (wind farm). This article presents flowcharts for the TPF smart contract implemented by the CGG using DLT. The test scenarios were implemented using a real-time simulator containing a CGG system and relay in-the-loop. The data collected from the CGG system were used to execute the TPF smart contract. The desired TPF limits on the grid-side were between +0.9 and +1.0, and the operation of the breakers in the electrical grid and DER sides was controlled by the relay consistent with the provisions of the smart contract. The events from the real-time simulator, CGG, and relay showed a successful implementation of the TPF smart contract with CGG using DLT, proving the efficacy of this approach in general for implementing electrical grid applications for utilities with connections to customer-owned DERs.

Data Center Problems

“Hyperscale” data centers accompanying the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the fastest growing uses of electricity in the United States and the rest of the world. Indeed, such growth, with the retirement of dispatchable fossil fuel electricity plants, drives persistent warnings about potential reliability problems for the US power system. As Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC's) Commissioner Mark Christie warned in late July, to the House Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security.

A multi-layer constrained spectral k-embedded clustering methodology approach for intelligent partitioning of power grid to enhance resiliency in transmission networks

The intentional controlled islanding by intelligent partitioning of the power grid is considered as essential to protect the grid from cascading events, faults, and High Impact Low Probability (HILP) events. To enhance the resilience, stability, and security of the power grid, the proposed model in this paper intentionally divides the affected power network into islands. This paper presents an intelligent partitioning approach to create an islanding solution through multilayer graphs using spectral clustering. The controlled islanding algorithm uses a multi-criteria objective function that considers the correlation coefficients among the frequency of the buses and minimal disturbances in the real and reactive power. The proposed control technique is implemented in two phases. The first phase employs correlation coefficients between frequency of the buses and modularity clustering to identify clusters of coherent buses. During the second stage, all nodes are categorised into groups using Multi-level constrained Spectral Clustering (ML-CSC) to determine the solution for Intentional controlled Islanding that satisfies bus coherency with the minimum level of disruptions to real and reactive power flows across the boundaries. The proposed algorithm for resolving the generator coherency issue and an intelligent islanding solution is demonstrated by simulation experiments conducted on an IEEE 39-bus transmission test system developed in DIGSILENT Powerfactory version 2023. The MATLAB version R2023a is used to construct the ML-CSC control method. The results demonstrated that the proposed ML-CSC algorithm substantially impacts the functioning of the power system, enabling the formation of intelligent islanding during abnormal conditions. Also, the results clearly show that instead of using single-layer spectral clustering, the multi-layer spectral clustering yields a better intentional islanding solution with minimum power flow mismatch which enhances the transient stability of the islands.

Edge Computing Method for False Data Injection Attack Detection in Electromechanical Transient Simulation Grid

Because edge computing is close to the terminal, it has significant advantages of low latency and high-security realtime control and has huge application prospects in the current popular smart grid. Because its edge side is close to the terminal, it can also effectively avoid the risk of information leakage when control instructions or communication data are transmitted to remote cloud center servers over a long distance. However, edge devices have a greater probability of encountering false data injection attacks (FDIAs) from illegal terminals because of their proximity to terminals. The transient electromechanical situation of the smart grid due to FDIAs is analyzed under edge computing. Due to the characteristics that the status values of grid nodes have temporal correlation before and after and spatial correlation between nodes, the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) for training time series data is selected to predict the status values of grid nodes in advance. The FDIA detection method is also proposed based on the LSTM network. By calculating the predicted value at each historical moment and the root means square error (RMSE) of the system state estimation at that moment, the detection threshold of the scheme is calculated through the cumulative distribution function of RMSE. Simulation experiments are conducted on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)-14 node standard system. The detection rate is as high as 99.71%, which verifies the effectiveness of the proposed FDIA detection scheme. This paper studies the security threat of FDIA to the stable power system operation and provides theoretical analysis and practical reference for other power grid security protection strategies.

Generated power forecast of dye-sensitized solar plant with deep neural network

ABSTRACT The enormous amount of solar power and its state-of-the-art capturing technology that produces electricity, increases the grid interconnection rate of photovoltaic (PV) plants. Prior knowledge of the aperiodic characteristics of solar energy received by the Earth’s surface is essential for PV plants to ensure reliable operation and stable, secure grid connections. Power generation under diffused sunlight by PV plants with the most widely used first-generation solar cells has significant limitations. A dye-sensitized solar plant (DSSP), utilizes dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) technology, remains active in low light conditions. Though the activeness enables such plants to generate electricity throughout the year while receiving diffuse sunlight, unlike conventional solar technologies the plants have a requirement of knowledge of future power generation. This could be the first paper to report on the generated power forecast for such plants. The study has utilized a machine learning approach with a proposed DSSP model for the forecast. Spyder, an open-source integrated development environment, is the test workbench for the experimentation. The results show the robustness and reliability of the method, regardless of the weather conditions in the test area. The DSSP, along with the prediction model, will moderately overcome the shortcomings of power generation under diffuse daylight with intermittent solar radiation and grid connections.

Research on the Cable-to-Terminal Connection Recognition Based on the YOLOv8-Pose Estimation Model

Substations, as critical nodes for power transmission and distribution, play a pivotal role in ensuring the stability and security of the entire power grid. With the ever-increasing demand for electricity and the growing complexity of grid structures, traditional manual inspection methods for substations can no longer meet the requirements for efficient and safe operation and maintenance. The advent of automated inspection systems has brought revolutionary changes to the power industry. These systems utilize advanced sensor technology, image processing techniques, and artificial intelligence algorithms to achieve real-time monitoring and fault diagnosis of substation equipment. Among these, the recognition of cable-to-terminal connection relationships is a key task for automated inspection systems, and its accuracy directly impacts the system’s diagnostic capabilities and fault prevention levels. However, traditional methods face numerous limitations when dealing with complex power environments, such as inadequate recognition performance under conditions of significant perspective angles and geometric distortions. This paper proposes a cable-to-terminal connection relationship recognition method based on the YOLOv8-pose model. The YOLOv8-pose model combines object detection and pose estimation techniques, significantly improving detection accuracy and real-time performance in environments with small targets and dense occlusions through optimized feature extraction algorithms and enhanced receptive fields. The model achieves an average inference time of 74 milliseconds on the test set, with an accuracy of 92.8%, a recall rate of 91.5%, and an average precision mean of 90.2%. Experimental results demonstrate that the YOLOv8-pose model performs excellently under different angles and complex backgrounds, accurately identifying the connection relationships between terminals and cables, providing reliable technical support for automated substation inspection systems. This research offers an innovative solution for automated substation inspection systems, with significant application prospects.

A Gnn-Enhanced Ant Colony Optimization for Security Strategy Orchestration

The expansion of Internet of Things (IoT) technology and the rapid increase in data in smart grid business scenarios have led to a need for more dynamic and adaptive security strategies. Traditional static security measures struggle to meet the evolving low-voltage security requirements of state grid systems under this new IoT-driven environment. By incorporating symmetry in metaheuristic algorithms, we can further improve performance and robustness. Symmetrical properties have the potential to lead to more efficient and balanced solutions, improving the overall stability of the grid. We propose a gnn-enhanced ant colony optimization method for orchestrating grid security strategies, which trains across combinatorial optimization problems (COPs) that are representative scenarios in the state grid business scenarios, to learn specific mappings from instances to their heuristic measures. The learned heuristic metrics are embedded into the ant colony optimization (ACO) to generate the optimal security policy adapted to the current security situation. Compared to the ACO and adaptive elite ACO, our method reduces the average time consumption of finding a path within a limited time in the capacitated vehicle routing problem by 67.09% and 66.98%, respectively. Additionally, ablation experiments verify the effectiveness and necessity of the individual functional modules.

A hierarchical frequency stability control strategy for distributed energy resources based on ADMM

With the large-scale distributed energy resources (DERs) interfaced by power electronic converters connected to the power grid, the traditional synchronous generation is gradually replaced, and the inertia and primary frequency regulation capability of the power system is weakened, which seriously threatens the frequency security of the power grid. In view of the above problems, a hierarchical control strategy by coordinating the distributed wind turbine (WT) and photovoltaic (PV) is presented to improve the transient frequency (TF) and steady-state frequency (SSF). For the system control level, the optimal frequency regulation coefficients of multiple WTs and PVs clustering systems are determined by the optimal control principle with minimum frequency regulation energy, while considering the constraints of TF and SSF. For the WT/PV control level, the frequency regulation coefficients of WTs and PVs are solved by the model predictive controller (MPC) and alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM), with the minimum control cost of WT and PV. It achieves the optimal allocation of frequency regulation power and improves the computing efficiency. Finally, the validity of the proposed method is tested in the modified IEEE 10-machine 39-bus system.

Short-Term Optimal Scheduling of Power Grids Containing Pumped-Storage Power Station Based on Security Quantification

In order to improve grid security while pursuing a grid operation economy and new energy consumption rates, this paper proposes a short-term optimal scheduling method based on security quantification for the grid containing a pumped-storage power plant. The method first establishes a grid security evaluation model to evaluate grid security from the perspective of grid resilience. Then, a short-term optimal dispatch model of the grid based on security quantification is constructed with the new energy consumption rate and grid loss as the objectives. In addition, an efficient intelligent optimization algorithm, Dung Beetle Optimization, is introduced to solve the scheduling model, dynamically updating the evaluation intervals during the iterative solution process and evaluating the grid security level and selecting the best result after the iterative solution. Finally, the improvement in the term IEEE 30-bus grid connected to a pumped-storage power plant is used as an example to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method and model.

Real-Time Intrusion Detection in Power Grids Using Deep Learning: Ensuring DPU Data Security

Deep learning technologies have revolutionized the management of energy, energy consumption, and data security within smart grids through non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM). This paper explores the use of deep learning for real-time intrusion detection in power grids with a primary focus on safeguarding the integrity and security of Data Processing Units (DPUs). An evaluation of various machine learning models, including Support Vector Machine (SVM), Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Decision Trees, and Random Forests, is conducted to detect various types of intrusions, including Fault, Injection, Masquerade, Normal, and Replay. Random Forest produced AUC values of 1.00 for all classes and an overall F1-score of 0.99 for all classes. The Decision Tree model also shows robust performance for detecting Fault and Injection intrusions (AUC = 0.98), with an overall F1-score of 0.94. However, the LDA and SVM models do not perform well in detecting Injection intrusions with overall F1-scores of 0.83 and 0.86. Advances in machine learning can be used to improve smart grid security, reliability, and efficiency, according to this study. These findings highlight the potential of advanced machine learning techniques to enhance smart grid reliability and efficiency. Doi: 10.28991/HIJ-2024-05-03-018 Full Text: PDF

A two-step optimization model for virtual power plant participating in spot market based on energy storage power distribution considering comprehensive forecasting error of renewable energy output

As a complement to the medium and long-term market, the spot market plays an important role in maintaining the security and stability of the power grid. However, as spot trading is more proximate to the actual operation of the power system, the virtual power plant (VPP) is exposed to greater volatility in renewable energy output as well as market prices. To enhance its market competitiveness, this paper constructs a two-step optimization model for VPP participation in the spot market. Based on long-term transaction, the energy storage power is distributed based on the comprehensive forecasting error of renewable energy output. This makes the VPP obtain the maximum profit in the day-ahead market. The trading deviation penalty is reduced by adjusting the energy storage operation plan in the real-time market. The conditional value at risk is used to measure the risk of a trading strategy. The profit of VPP participation in the spot market is analyzed under different risk levels, thus providing a basis for decision makers with different risk appetites. The results show that: (1) The sensitivity of the growth rates of EtVaRαand EtCVaRα to risk level shows an opposite trend. And there is an excess of arbitrage power at low risk level. (2) Although the total cost decreases as the risk level increases, the actual profit in the spot market tends to increase and then decrease. The risk level of the VPP should be set at about 0.4 to make full use of energy storage and obtain the maximum market benefit. (3) The energy storage power can be distributed more accurately according to the forecasting error of renewable energy. This not only enhances its arbitrage ability, but also ensures its regulation ability, thus improving the overall benefit of VPP at different risk levels. (4) The sensitivity of the trend in the unit profit of traded quantity in the spot market to the trading proportion in the medium and long-term market is not monotonic.

Short-Term Wind Power Prediction Based on Encoder-Decoder Network and Multi-Point Focused Linear Attention Mechanism.

Wind energy is a clean energy source that is characterised by significant uncertainty. The electricity generated from wind power also exhibits strong unpredictability, which when integrated can have a substantial impact on the security of the power grid. In the context of integrating wind power into the grid, accurate prediction of wind power generation is crucial in order to minimise damage to the grid system. This paper proposes a novel composite model (MLL-MPFLA) that combines a multilayer perceptron (MLP) and an LSTM-based encoder-decoder network for short-term prediction of wind power generation. In this model, the MLP first extracts multidimensional features from wind power data. Subsequently, an LSTM-based encoder-decoder network explores the temporal characteristics of the data in depth, combining multidimensional features and temporal features for effective prediction. During decoding, an improved focused linear attention mechanism called multi-point focused linear attention is employed. This mechanism enhances prediction accuracy by weighting predictions from different subspaces. A comparative analysis against the MLP, LSTM, LSTM-Attention-LSTM, LSTM-Self_Attention-LSTM, and CNN-LSTM-Attention models demonstrates that the proposed MLL-MPFLA model outperforms the others in terms of MAE, RMSE, MAPE, and R2, thereby validating its predictive performance.

A novel BiGRU multi-step wind power forecasting approach based on multi-label integration random forest feature selection and neural network clustering

Accurate wind power forecasting helps to carry out effective scheduling and scientific management of wind power, and improve the security and reliability of the power grid. However, the intermittency, volatility and instability of wind energy make wind power forecasting challenging. Therefore, in order to improve the accuracy and stability of wind power forecasting, this paper proposes a bidirectional gated recurrent unit (BiGRU) multi-step wind power forecasting approach based on multi-label integration random forest (MLRF) feature selection and neural network clustering (NNClustering). The proposed MLRF method extends the applicability of random forest through multiple criteria and enables feature selection for multi-step forecasting tasks of multi-factor time series to obtain optimal input features and time steps, which reduces the computational cost and improves the generalization ability of the model. The proposed NNClustering method establishes a novel convolution-based clustering structure and adjusts the parameters by gradient descent method to obtain the optimal clustering centers, and the robust data applicability of the method is validated in multiple seasonal experiments. The WOA-BiGRU forecasting model is constructed separately for each cluster, which reduces the modeling difficulty and better extracts the characteristics. The BiGRU model extracts more efficient characteristics by processing sequences in both directions and the important parameters of BiGRU are optimized by the whale optimization algorithm (WOA) to obtain the optimal forecasting model. Experimental results over multiple seasons show that the proposed hybrid approach has good forecasting performance and robustness, which provides a novel and efficient solution for wind power forecasting.

BSPM: Blockchain-based Security Protection Model for power load management terminals

Power load management terminals are essential components of the smart grid system. However, they encounter numerous security challenges owing to their widespread deployment across large areas. These nodes exist in uncontrollable physical environments and are vulnerable to malicious attacks. Researching security measures for these terminals is vital to enhancing the security of the smart grid. Blockchain technology, with its distributed storage and tamper-proof features, can effectively protect the data security of these terminals. This paper proposes a blockchain-based security protection model for power load management terminals. First, the architecture of the model is designed using blockchain technology. In addition, a dynamic trust evaluation method for terminals is established through the beta reputation system. The blockchain consensus algorithm for power load management terminals is designed based on the trust evaluation value and practical Byzantine fault tolerance. The effectiveness of the trust evaluation model is verified by simulating the terminal operating situation. The message complexity and storage requirements of the security protection model are analyzed by comparing them with results from related studies.

Network Security Challenges and Countermeasures for Software-Defined Smart Grids: A Survey

The rise of grid modernization has been prompted by the escalating demand for power, the deteriorating state of infrastructure, and the growing concern regarding the reliability of electric utilities. The smart grid encompasses recent advancements in electronics, technology, telecommunications, and computer capabilities. Smart grid telecommunication frameworks provide bidirectional communication to facilitate grid operations. Software-defined networking (SDN) is a proposed approach for monitoring and regulating telecommunication networks, which allows for enhanced visibility, control, and security in smart grid systems. Nevertheless, the integration of telecommunications infrastructure exposes smart grid networks to potential cyberattacks. Unauthorized individuals may exploit unauthorized access to intercept communications, introduce fabricated data into system measurements, overwhelm communication channels with false data packets, or attack centralized controllers to disable network control. An ongoing, thorough examination of cyber attacks and protection strategies for smart grid networks is essential due to the ever-changing nature of these threats. Previous surveys on smart grid security lack modern methodologies and, to the best of our knowledge, most, if not all, focus on only one sort of attack or protection. This survey examines the most recent security techniques, simultaneous multi-pronged cyber attacks, and defense utilities in order to address the challenges of future SDN smart grid research. The objective is to identify future research requirements, describe the existing security challenges, and highlight emerging threats and their potential impact on the deployment of software-defined smart grid (SD-SG).