Securing Publisher–Subscriber Smart Grid Infrastructure

The security of communication protocols in the smart grid system is a crucial concern. An adversary can exploit the lack of confidentiality and authentication mechanism to cause damaging consequences. In the substation automation systems that rely on multicast communication between various intelligent electronic devices, the lack of security features in the standard IEC61850 and IEC62351 can invite attackers to manipulate the integrity of the employed publisher–subscriber communication paradigm to their advantage. Consequently, many researchers have introduced various approaches offering authenticity and confidentiality. However, such schemes and methods for the aforesaid standards have computational limitations in compliance with the stringent timing requirements of specific applications in the smart grid. In this paper, we propose an approach that can fully secure the publisher–subscriber communication against confidentiality attacks. In this direction, we develop a demo tool to validate the performance of our proposed security approach for potential factors such as timing requirements and the size of the messages. Finally, we evaluate our scheme considering the requirements of the GOOSE, SMV, and MMS protocols in the substation automation systems.

Denial-of-Service Attack on IEC 61850-Based Substation Automation System: A Crucial Cyber Threat towards Smart Substation Pathways

The generation of the mix-based expansion of modern power grids has urged the utilization of digital infrastructures. The introduction of Substation Automation Systems (SAS), advanced networks and communication technologies have drastically increased the complexity of the power system, which could prone the entire power network to hackers. The exploitation of the cyber security vulnerabilities by an attacker may result in devastating consequences and can leave millions of people in severe power outage. To resolve this issue, this paper presents a network model developed in OPNET that has been subjected to various Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to demonstrate cyber security aspect of an international electrotechnical commission (IEC) 61850 based digital substations. The attack scenarios have exhibited significant increases in the system delay and the prevention of messages, i.e., Generic Object-Oriented Substation Events (GOOSE) and Sampled Measured Values (SMV), from being transmitted within an acceptable time frame. In addition to that, it may cause malfunction of the devices such as unresponsiveness of Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs), which could eventually lead to catastrophic scenarios, especially under different fault conditions. The simulation results of this work focus on the DoS attack made on SAS. A detailed set of rigorous case studies have been conducted to demonstrate the effects of these attacks.

Real Time Monitoring and Control of Substation Parameters using IOT

This paper studies about real time monitoring and control of substation .automation of substation has become a need of companies. So, it is necessary to monitoring system that will be able to automatically sense, monitor, and classify the existing constraints on electrical loads. The main purpose of the project is to acquire the remote electrical parameters like voltage, current, temperature and frequency and send these real time values over network at power station. This project is also designed to protect the electrical equipments by operating relays .This relay gets activated whenever the electrical parameters exceed the predefined values.This system can automatically update the real time electrical parameters periodically. It has sensing capability to sense whether the system is in normal conditions or it exceeded the predefined values .If it exceeds predefined values then it gives buzzer to alert and relays automatically trips the circuit .

Automation Supply Control of Substation during Disaster

Green and sustainable power is the need of the day. With widening supply and demand gap, power management has become one of the most critical areas of concern all over the world. India’s energy consumption is increasing at one of the fastest rates in the world. Hence, we require Substation Automation Systems in the present day substations to efficiently control and deliver power. The main objective is to create a SCADA system for the desired substation. Power automation serving electric supply locations often require special protection against the effects of fault-produced. Protection relays need to function immediately when a faulty condition occurs. This is why Intelligent Electronic Devices (IED’s) are brought in for safe operation of switchyard devices, which can prevent disasters to energy supply and help in human safety. With the introduction of IEC 61850, utility communication will be used for substation automation and also for protection purposes within a substation and between substations. A Substation Automation System (SAS) provides facility to control and monitor all the equipment in the substation locally as well as remotely. A Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition (SCADA) system provides users with a Human Machine Interface (HMI) which can be used for controlling, monitoring and protection of devices. This saves us cost and time.Substations are key components of the power grid, facilitating the efficient transmission and distribution of electricity Substation automation systems make their control and monitoring possible in real time and help maximize availability, efficiency, reliability, safety and data integration.

Toward a Substation Automation System Based on IEC 61850

With the global trend to digitalize substation automation systems, International Electro technical Commission 61850, a communication protocol defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission, has been given much attention to ensure consistent communication and integration of substation high-voltage primary plant assets such as instrument transformers, circuit breakers and power transformers with various intelligent electronic devices into a hierarchical level. Along with this transition, equipment of primary plants in the switchyard, such as non-conventional instrument transformers, and a secondary system including merging units are expected to play critical roles due to their fast-transient response over a wide bandwidth. While a non-conventional instrument transformer has advantages when compared with the conventional one, extensive and detailed performance investigation and feasibility studies are still required for its full implementation at a large scale within utilities, industries, smart grids and digital substations. This paper is taking one step forward with respect to this aim by employing an optimized network engineering tool to evaluate the performance of an Ethernet-based network and to validate the overall process bus design requirement of a high-voltage non-conventional instrument transformer. Furthermore, the impact of communication delay on the substation automation system during peak traffic is investigated through a detailed simulation analysis.