Project Title: Cyber Vulnerability Assessment of Electrical Power Systems using Distributed Synchrophasers
Project Summary: With the number of Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) in the North American power grid scaling up into the thousands, system operators are gradually leaning towards distributed cyber-physical architectures for executing wide-area state-estimation and control operations using Synchrophasors. Traditional centralized state estimation approaches, in fact, are anticipated to become untenable soon due to various factors such as data volume, single point of failure, and inability to adhere to real-time deadlines. The trade-off for switching from centralized to distributed state estimation, however, is that the latter requires a highly robust and efficient communication network that not only works in sync with the grid but also guarantees high resiliency against physical failures and denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. In this project we will develop a suite of algorithms by which the impact of such cyber-physical attacks can be evaluated in real-time from Synchrophasor data so that appropriate mitigation actions can be taken.
Results will be verified using real-time simulations of various IEEE prototype models implemented in the RTDS-PMU test-beds at NC State and UNC Charlotte.
A specific case study on the 500 KV transmission line model connecting Winnipeg, Canada to Minneapolis, USA will be used to showcase the vulnerability assessment.
University Team Members
Lead: Madhav Manjrekar, UNC Charlotte
Members: Aranya Chakrabortty and Ning Lu, NC State
Industry Advisors: Melanie Miller and Megan Vutsinas, Duke Energy