Topics in Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality- Securing Electricity Supply in the Cyber Age

This book presents the contributions from a workshop entitled "Electricity security in the cyber age: Managing the increasing dependence of the electricity infrastructure on ICT," which was organized in the Netherlands in May 2009. The electricity infrastructure is one of society’s most critical infrastructures. The complexity of the electricity infrastructure system is increasing quickly, due to the increasing intensity of trade within and between electricity systems, the associated market restructuring and an increasing share of decentralized generation. At the same time, there is a shift in public goals towards low-carbon and sustainable power generation. This requires a drastic transformation of the industry. Increasingly, ICT is being depended upon for managing this infrastructure, for technical control and operation as well as for facilitating markets. A recent example is demand-side management, which requires detailed metering of consumption and decentralized electricity generation. The mutual dependence of the electricity and the ICT infrastructures raises challenging questions in the areas of dependability, security and resilience. Examples include vulnerability to (cyber) attacks, avoiding and repairing technical failures and protecting data confidentiality, while guaranteeing accessibility. Therefore, better models and methods for protection against exploits of system vulnerabilities, whether accidental or intentional such as in cyber attacks, are called for. These problems were addressed at an advanced research workshop, titled "Electricity security in the cyber age: Managing the increasing dependence of the electricity infrastructure on ICT", which was organized in the Netherlands in May 2009. The objective of the workshop was to contribute to the security of current and future electricity infrastructures by analyzing the risks that are caused by the increasing reliance upon ICT and investigating options for managing these risks. This book presents the contributions to the workshop by distinguished invited keynote speakers and participants from the international scientific and industrial community. Margot P. C. Weijnen, Zofia Lukszo and Geert Deconinck Abstract The infrastructures for electric power and information and telecommunication services are critical enablers for all economic activity. Both of these infrastructure systems evolved over time as networks-of-networks in an institutionally fr- mented landscape. In understanding and steering the emergent behaviour of these infrastructure systems both their physical network complexity and their social n- work complexity pose a formidable challenge. On top of the socio-technical c- plexity of the electricity infrastructure and the information and telecommunication infrastructure as such, the two infrastructure systems show unprecedented mutual interdependency. Unravelling this multi-level interdependency and identifying strategies to curb the new risks and vulnerabilities it implies for the reliability of electric power services is the goal of this book. It clearly shows that technical so- tions alone will not suffice to ensure the future reliability and security of electricity infrastructure operations. Keywords Cybersecurity * infrastructure vulnerability * infrastructure depend- cies * power systems 1. 1 Infrastructures Are Critical Infrastructures are the backbone of the economy and society. Especially the network bound infrastructures operated by public utilities and network industries provide essential services that are enabling for almost every economic and social activity. M. P. C. Weijnen (*) and Z. Lukszo Technology Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, P. O. Box 5015, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands e-mail: M. P. C. Weijnen@tudelft. nl; Z. Lukszo@tudelft. nl G. Deconinck K. U.