Track: Electric Power Systems:
---------- Engineering, Economics, and Policy
Minitrack: Reliability and Cyber Security

This mini-track focuses on topics related to advanced communication and control concepts to enhance reliability, and cyber security issues associated with operating the future electric power infrastructure. The increasing reliance of the electric power industry on information technologies introduces a new class of cyber vulnerabilities and threats to the electric power infrastructure that are only beginning to be effectively addressed through common industry standards and best practices. This mini-track will explore the application of these technologies that are being considered to enhance the reliability of the modern electric power grid, and the associated cyber security issues associated with these and related technologies.

Session 1: Control system cyber security
Networked computer systems are increasingly used to support the operation of electric power grids and energy service providers. Many types of Intelligent Electrical Devices (IEDs) have been introduced in substations and networked through Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. Millions of power meters are being upgraded to Advanced Meter Infrastructures (AMIs) that provide for networked access to meter data over wireless links and the Internet. These advances have exposed electric power systems to the numerous cyber security threats that plague other types of computers and networks. These threats can be addressed to some degree by sound application of existing cyber security techniques, but there are also new types of problems specific to control systems in general and electric power systems in particular. This session will consist of research advances in technologies that will provide the necessary cyber security for such systems.

Session 2: Advanced communication/control for reliability
The electric power grid is a complex networked infrastructure subject to rare but costly blackouts involving cascading failures, operating procedures, and a variety of dynamical interactions. Bulk power transactions are increasing in volume and variety that stress the grid in new ways and physical grid upgrade remains constrained by economic, policy and environmental considerations. The session will address innovations in power system operation and control to improve reliability enabled by advances in monitoring, modeling and computation.

Minitrack Chair:
Jeffery E. Dagle
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
P.O. Box 999, MS K1-98 Richland, WA 99352 USA
Phone: +1-509-375-3629
Fax: +1-509-375-2266
Email: jeff.dagle@pnl.gov

Session Organizer and Chair:
Control system cyber security
William Sanders
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
451 Coordinated Science Laboratory, MC-228
1308 West Main Street, Urbana, IL 61801-2307, USA
Phone: +1-217-333-0345
Fax: +1-217-244-3359
Email: whs@uiuc.edu

Advanced communication/control for reliability
Jeffery E. Dagle
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
P.O. Box 999, MS K1-98 Richland, WA 99352 USA
Phone: +1-509-375-3629
Fax: +1-509-375-2266
Email: jeff.dagle@pnl.gov