A survey of protocol-level challenges and solutions for distributed energy resource cyber-physical security

Aditya Sundararajan, Aniket Chavan, Danish Saleem, Arif I. Sarwat

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

45 Scopus citations

Abstract

The increasing proliferation of distributed energy resources (DERs) on the smart grid has made distributed solar and wind two key contributors to the expanding attack surface of the network; however, there is a lack of proper understanding and enforcement of DER communications security requirements. With vendors employing proprietary methods to mitigate hosts of attacks, the literature currently lacks a clear organization of the protocol-level vulnerabilities, attacks, and solutions mapped to each layer of the logical model such as the OSI stack. To bridge this gap and pave the way for future research by the authors in determining key DER security requirements, this paper conducts a comprehensive review of the key vulnerabilities, attacks, and potential solutions for solar and wind DERs at the protocol level. In doing so, this paper serves as a starting point for utilities, vendors, aggregators, and other industry stakeholders to develop a clear understanding of the DER security challenges and solutions, which are key precursors to comprehending security requirements.

Original languageEnglish
Article numberen11092360
JournalEnergies
Volume11
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - 2018
Externally publishedYes

Funding

Funding: This work was developed and authored at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), operated by Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308. This work was supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program at NREL. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S. Government. Only minor efforts for guidance and mentorship were sourced from the NSF Grant No. CNS-1553494. This work was developed and authored at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), operated by Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308. This work was supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program at NREL. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S. Government. Only minor efforts for guidance and mentorship were sourced from the NSF Grant No. CNS-1553494.

Keywords

  • Challenges
  • Communications
  • DER
  • Enforcement
  • Photovoltaic
  • Protocols
  • SCADA
  • Security requirements
  • Solutions
  • Standards
  • Wind turbine

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