State Estimation and Contingency Analysis of the Power Grid in a Cyber-Adversarial Environment

Contingency analysis is a critical activity in the context of the power infrastructure, because it provides a guide for resiliency and enables the grid to continue operating even in the case of failure. A critical issue with the current evolution of the power grid into a so-called smart grid is the introduction of cyber-security threats due to the pervasive deployment of communication networks and digital devices. In this paper, we introduce a cyber-physical security evaluation technique to take into account those threats. The goal of this approach is to augment traditional contingency analysis by not only planning for accidental contingencies but also for malicious compromises. This solution requires a new unified formalism to model the whole cyber-physical system including interconnections among the cyber and physical components. The system model is later used to assess potential impacts of both cyber and physical contingencies in order to prioritize prevention and mitigation efforts. Keywords-component; formatting; style; styling; insert (key words)