Infrastructure Security and Resilience
Protecting the Modern Power Grid From Cyber and Physical Threats
The power grid has vulnerabilities that can be exploited by human-caused and natural events. INL plays a leading role in protecting the modern power grid from cyber and physical threats. INL’s innovative technology solutions include intelligent sensors that enhance the resilience and security of the smart grid, secure control systems that reduce the threat of cyberattacks, and physical devices and barriers that protect substations and transformers from geomagnetic disturbance and ballistic attacks.
Capabilites
Power Grid Transformation
Ongoing DOE-supported grid security programs and projects include:
INL grid security research and technologies include:
- Protective Relay Permissive Communication (PRPC) – develop emerging solutions to protect the modern power grid from cyber and physical threats.
Infrastructure Resilience Analysis
Critical infrastructure analysis enables stakeholders to improve resilience and disaster preparation through assessment, dependency analysis and visualization, mapping, and geospatial analysis. Some examples of tabletop exercises and risk management tools include:
Full-scale Critical Infrastructure Testing
The nation’s electric power grid consists of thousands of miles of high-voltage power lines, substations, distribution transformers, and millions of miles of low-voltage power lines providing electricity to homes, businesses and communities.
Industrial control systems are at the heart of this network, controlling the flow of power and regulating safety and reliability.
Center for Securing the Digital Energy Transition
The Center for Securing Digital Energy Transition provides building blocks and resources to enable the secure resilient digital transformation of energy. By elevating cybersecurity practices and improving overall system integrity, we strive for a system that can survive major events and thrive in enabling clean, affordable and secure supply of energy.
Mathematically Formalized Assurance for National Security
Mathematically Formalinized Assurance for National Security (MFANS) aims to use formal methods to close the gap between model and implementation. Bridging this “model-implementation divide” improves the resiliency of critical systems against sophisticated adversaries.
Modeling and Simulation Tools
Researchers use the Real Time Digital Simulator, a physics-based simulator that enhances the security of the nation’s electric power grid and related control systems including supervisory control and data acquisition systems. Engineers use it to visualize the effects of power grid failures.
- Vessel Routing & Suitability Tool – A rapid decision support tool for maritime transportation system emergencies.
- Modeling and Simulation for Target Electrical Resilience and Reliability Improvements – Integrated grid resilience modeling suite that merges physics-based power flow and contingency analysis, probabilistic risk assessment and resilience adaptive capacity tools to analyze power utility systems to improve power grid resilience
