Power-grid protection
Traveling at the speed of light, electronically charged particles travel from the sun to earth in about 8 minutes (Haystack Observatory, n.d.). Similar to air on earth, these traveling solar particles are known as solar winds. With enough strength, solar winds become geomagnetic storms (Lloyd’s of London, Homeier, & Weil, 2013). Geomagnetic storms are one type of event that deliver a high power blast through the earth’s atmosphere and create substantial damage due to intensely concentrated energy. An artificial form of a geomagnetic storm occurs from weapons such as electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) weapons (Burke & Schneider 2015).
Case analysis provides insight to understand power-grid damage or loss. Natural and man-made atmospheric energy threats are rare but high impact events that can destroy a power-grid (Lloyd’s of London, Homeier, & Weil, 2013). To protect U.S. power grids, understanding potential loss is important to defining the role of government, private industry and individuals in accomplishing power-grid resilience.
Case 1: In 1989, a geomagnetic storm struck the Hydro-Quebec power grid with enough energy to overload protective systems and damage two transformers storms (Lloyd’s of London, Homeier, & Weil, 2013). Six million residents in Quebec suffered a nine-hour loss of power (Currie, 2015). Although the storm was a rare event, it resulted in a short-term systemic paralysis. Since 1989, the Canadian government has invested $1.2 billion dollars in power grid protection.
Case 2: In 2013, unknown gunmen used semi-automatic rifles and damaged 17 transformers in San Jose, California (Haplern & Lifsher, 2014). Transformers are critical to delivering power, and the transformers targeted in the attack were more sophisticated transformers that could take months to replace. The vandalism incident could have significantly reduced regional power distribution. According the Jon Wellinghoff, former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the incident was a wall-planned act of terrorism. While guns are not atmospheric threats, EMPs could be used as a weapon to achieve destruction of transformers.
Power-grid failure is a societal issue. Power is the backbone of U.S. operations and economy (Executive Office of the White House, 2013). Since power-grid failure has the potential to effect catastrophic loss, the U.S. federal government has a vested interest in the protecting the power grid from mass damage or destruction (Currie, 2015). The U.S. government has implemented several programs aimed at controlling societal risks associated with power grid failures. The U.S. government also provides financial support. In 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was passed into law, and $4.5 billion dollars was provided to fund investment in smart-grid technology. Part of smart-grid technology was the development of resilient systems.
The U.S. government has broad resources to address systemic power-grid protection. Resources include atmospheric monitoring, military intervention, economic relief, environmental planning and deployment of emergency services in the event of large-scale disaster (Currie, 2015). Atmospheric research facilitates the development of models to estimate likelihood of natural geomagnetic storms. This same research can be used to study the impact of electromagnetic pulse weapons (Burke & Schneider, 2015). Other resources such as military intervention or environmental planning address provide supplementary protection for disasters. Economic relief assists with the recovery of societal loss. National disaster response provides capabilities such as the National Response Framework and quick implementation of extensive resources to remediate large-scale disaster (Department of Homeland Security, 2015).
Power-grid resilience requires risk assessment and disaster recovery response. Incidents such as the Quebec power loss and the San Jose transformer shooting have motivated the U.S. federal authorities to deploy resources toward protection of the U.S. power grid. Legislation such as the Energy Policy Act of 2005 was enacted to empower the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) with the authority to govern power-grid reliability (FERC, n.d.). FERC’s responsibilities include oversight of cyber-reliability and smart-grid standards. Organizations such as the Naval Postgraduate School participate in research to develop models of cyber resilience. The models provide a means to simulate and analyze cyberthreat impacts (Salmeron, 204). The U.S. government has also collaborated with private industry in projects such as RecX which is a power transformer project to facilitate faster recovery from power outages associated with transformers (Currie, 2015).
Collaboration is needed between private industry and government. More than 85 percent of the power-grid is owned by private industry (Currie, 2015). However, the burden of power-grid loss impacts everyone. The cost burden of power-grid loss can be observed in the storm-related power outages. Between 2003 and 2012, average annual costs associated with weather-related power outages ranged from $18 billion to $33 billion (Executive Office of the White House, 2013). These costs estimates include lost wages, inventory spoilage, delayed production and other economic loss. With the societal impact, there is an economic incentive for collaboration between private energy companies and government to collaborate in power-grid protection and resilience.
Private industry preparation is critical. In consideration of better preparedness, power companies have invested in the development of grid resilience with initiatives such a corporation that stockpiles power systems equipment. This initiative is called Grid Assurance LLC (Smith, 2016). Grid Assurance provides subscription-based services for parts repair and replacement. Further development of power-industry collaboration will yield better disaster recovery capability.
Educated individuals underpin successful disaster response. Individuals participate in the power grid system through participation in practicing good security. This includes reporting suspicious activity and collaborating during disasters.
References:
Burke, S., & Schneider, E. (2015, July 02). Do we really need to worry about electro-magnetic pulse weapons wiping out the power grid? Slate. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/07/emp_threats_could_an_electro_magnetic_.
Currie, C. (2015, July 22). Critical infrastructure protection: Preliminary observations on DHS efforts to address electromagnetic threats to the electric grid. Retrieved from http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/671554.pdf
Department of Homeland Security (DHS). (2013, May). National Response Framework (2nd Ed.). Retrieved from https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/20130726-1914-25045-1246/final_national_response_framework_20130501.pdf
Executive Office of the President. (2013). Economic benefits of increasing electric grid resilience to weather outages. The White House. Retrieved from http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/08/f2/Grid%20Resiliency%20Report_FINAL.pdf
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). (n.d.). FERC: Electric reliability: Cyber & grid security. Retrieved from http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/cybersecurity.asp
Harper, & Lifsher. (2014, February). Attack on electric grid raises alarm. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2014/feb/06/business/la-fi-grid-terror-20140207
Haystack Observatory. (n.d.). Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Retrieved from http://www.haystack.mit.edu/edu/pcr/Solar/files/PowerPoint%20Presentation%20-%20Introduction%20to%20the%20Sun%20and%20Space%20Weather.pdf
Lloyd’s of London, Homeier, & Weil. (2013). Solar storm risk to the North American electric grid. Retrieved from https://www.lloyds.com/~/media/lloyds/reports/emerging%20risk%20reports/solar%20storm%20risk%20to%20the%20north%20american%20electric%20grid.pdf
Salmeron, J. (2004). Analysis of electric grid security under terrorist threat. Calhoun: The NPS Institutional Archive. Retrieved from http://calhoun.nps.edu/handle/10945/36729
Smith, R. (2016, April 7). Utilities seek to stockpile essential parts for disasters. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/utilities-seek-to-stockpile-essential-parts-for-disasters-1460076194