The COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to compromise the ability of critical infrastructure utilities to respond to or mitigate natural hazards like wildfires and hurricanes. This article describes the ways that an energy organization, the regional transmission operator PJM, is preparing for hurricanes during the COVID-19 pandemic. PJM is using a combination of technological and organizational processes to prepare for hurricanes during the pandemic. Activities include the development of a third control room to increase redundancy and maintaining social distance at control center, investment in more resilient communications technology to maintain connectivity, and taking a holistic approach to identifying issues related to supply chain and fuel security. With this mix of organizational and technological processes, we argue that critical infrastructure resilience should be understood as a sociotechnical construct and identify several recommendations for improving resilience. The article has implications for policymakers working to maintain infrastructure resilience to natural hazards during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Maintaining critical infrastructure resilience to natural hazards during the COVID-19 pandemic: hurricane preparations by US energy companies

Due to the integration of information and internet, the power network has facing more and more uncertain risks of malicious attacks. In response to this problem, we studied it from following four aspects. First of all, multiple cyber-attacks (Denial-of-service, information disclosure, replay attack and deception attack) are analyzed from each operating mechanism. Then, the subsystems are concluded to be a generic modeling frame with considering different type cyber-attack. Secondly, secure defense scenarios are proposed according to each kind cyber-attacks based on the mechanism details. Thirdly, security control conditions are derived by utilizing control theory of stability. Finally, IEEE-14 and IEEE-39 system are used as typical cases to illustrate and analyze the impact of dynamic load altering attack on some of these nodes.

Control-theory based security control of cyber-physical power system under multiple cyber-attacks within unified model framework

Grid resiliency is defined as the ability to prepare for and adapt to changing conditions and withstand and recover rapidly from disruptions. Following large-scale disruptions of the power grid such as a complete blackout, parallel power system restoration accelerates the recovery process by allowing for simultaneous restoration in each island through network partitioning, thus enhancing grid resiliency. However, existing network partitioning strategies have not sufficiently considered variable renewable resources yet, and may not be flexible or computationally efficient to accommodate additional requirements from the evolving bulk power grid. To bridge these gaps, this study proposes a propagation-based optimization approach for power grid network partitioning. The requirements of blackstart resources, power balancing, synchrocheck relays for ties lines, and increased ramp rate requirements due to variable renewable resources are modeled in the constraints. Through propagation on the physical connectivity of grid assets, the network partitioning issue is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) problem. The linearity ensures highly computational performance and optimality of the solutions from the proposed approach to identify the cutset edge possibilities for bulk power grid applications. Graph reduction strategies are proposed to further improve the computational performance for online or nearly online applications. Case studies based on two IEEE benchmark systems show that the proposed MILP model is able to determine the optimal cutset for network partitioning in approximately 0.28 seconds, and the proposed network reduction strategy is able to further improve the computational performance by approximately 9%.

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Propagation-Based Network Partitioning Strategies for Parallel Power System Restoration With Variable Renewable Generation Resources

This paper focuses on providing an overview of research into different capacity market mechanisms. Beginning with the idea of the energy-only market and the resulting potential concerns of the missing money problem, this survey overviews a variety of studies of different capacity mechanisms, considering issues such as market power, risk attitudes, uncertainty, and pricing rules. Papers of specific interest to particular ISOs/RTOs are also discussed. Previous studies tend to show the advantages of utilizing capacity market mechanisms in lieu of relying solely upon energy-only markets, particularly in the presence of risk-averse investors or the potential exercise of market power. The findings discussed herein indicate the continued importance of studying capacity market mechanisms, particularly as electricity markets continue to evolve with the advent of increasing levels of renewable regeneration and the potential of storage.

Capacity Market Mechanism Analyses: a Literature Review

Because of climate changes, natural disasters are becoming more serious. For instance, the intensity of typhoons has been increasing in recent years. Typhoons and other natural disasters have high-impact low-probability characteristics. Thus, procedures for preparing for natural disasters and increasing power system resilience are important issues. This article proposes an all-inclusive process for system operators to make decisions for enhancing power system resilience and economic value during a severe weather event. This process first considers the typhoon track, the fragility curve and the recovery time of transmission lines. After collecting these data, system simulations and a calculated resilience index are implemented according to cases with and without disaster prevention. Next, the probability threshold and calculated economic value index are obtained based on numerical weather prediction wind speeds and the cost-loss ratio. Finally, the two indexes are considered in combination to obtain the highest resilience with the greatest benefit. The proposed process helps system operators make decisions for appropriate preventive actions at the least cost. An actual Taiwan power system and a severe weather event are used as an example to demonstrate the proposed decision analysis. The simulation results indicate the feasibility of the proposed method, which can reduce potential risks caused by extreme weather events with the maximum economic benefits. 

The Effect of Decision Analysis on Power System Resilience and Economic Value During a Severe Weather Event

Extreme weather, such as hurricanes and other storms, is the primary cause of widespread power failure in the United States Power failures can have a significant impact on our society With the increased frequency and intensity of these extreme weather events and future risks brought on by an evolving resource mix and the increased potential for cyber- and physical attacks, beyond reliability, the resilience of the power grid is becoming more critical The energy industry is working to improve resilience to make the grid stronger and smarter so it can better withstand disruptive events and reduce the magnitude and duration of any power failures that do occur

Toward Bulk Power System Resilience: Approaches for Regional Transmission Operators

Physical hazards such as extreme weather, and increasingly, so-phisticated cyber threats, jeopardize safe, reliable operation of the power grid in the United States. More than 98 percent of military installations in the nation depend on the civilian power grid to execute military and national security missions around the world. For these installations, power outages can have devastating con-sequences. Public Utility Commissions are in a unique position to help bring stakeholders together and work to enhance resiliency of this defense critical energy infrastructure. This article examines issues related to defense energy resilience and explores opportunities for PUCs to develop relationships with the Department of Defense to encourage projects that will enhance national security and provide resilience benefits to communities outside the fence line. Effective state-specific examples are high-lighted.

Defense Energy Resilience and the Role of State Public Utility Commissions

The protection of the bulk electric system in the face of large-scale threats like electromagnetic pulse and geomagnetic disturbances poses several unique systems engineering obstacles. This class of hazards, known as ‘Black Sky’ hazards, trigger unprecedented outages due to the scale of the triggering phenomena. Traditional risk assessment models and recovery plans have core assumptions that generation, transmission and distribution are unlikely to be simultaneously impacted and that physical damage will be relatively localized; based on these assumptions, industry can access power from neighbouring grid networks and restore some level of service fairly quickly, even if the localized problem takes far longer to correct. In contrast, outages at the scale caused by these ‘Black Sky’ hazards cannot be addressed by these traditional techniques. Before we develop effective recovery strategies from such ‘Black Sky’ events, new insights about root causes at such a large scale are required. Some of these insights are provided in this paper.

Jonathon E. Monken

Papers

Toward Bulk Power System Resilience: Approaches for Regional Transmission Operators

Defense Energy Resilience and the Role of State Public Utility Commissions

Interdependency Effects on the Electricity Grid Following a “Black Sky” Hazard