Smart grid security

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gar said:
141113-1337 EST

The following is an interesting discussion:
http://www.edn.com/design/wireless-...490414f768fe2206bd7afcdf8&elqCampaignId=20178

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This is something I have long thought about. The more critical components are encrypted, and secured better, but still it makes you wonder if its enough. There was a paper written on the issue once where they successfully demonstrated the ability to take over a small hydro power dam just through a basic internet connection in a few minutes. :eek:



I have long advocated that utilities build their own private fiber optic SCADA network separate from any internet that only employees have access to within on going encryption changes... but the cost and complexity isn't something anyone wants to invest in.


The irony comes from what SCADA is in itself trying to fix (or rather cover). Distribution and transmission automation is taking off to add plasticity (to compensate for physical weakening) and operational cost reduction to a severely dated system. Its meant to cover over what physical hardening and labor should be doing at a lower price. The end result is just opening a security issue.

FWIW I have long heard rumors the Chinese have already extensively gathered secure data on nearly all our SCADA networks. Its probably so they can see how one of our sewage treatment plants work so they can build the came (free intellectual property), but all that shows is how easy it is to gain access.
 
mbrooke said:
This is something I have long thought about. The more critical components are encrypted, and secured better, but still it makes you wonder if its enough. There was a paper written on the issue once where they successfully demonstrated the ability to take over a small hydro power dam just through a basic internet connection in a few minutes. :eek:



I have long advocated that utilities build their own private fiber optic SCADA network separate from any internet that only employees have access to within on going encryption changes... but the cost and complexity isn't something anyone wants to invest in.


The irony comes from what SCADA is in itself trying to fix (or rather cover). Distribution and transmission automation is taking off to add plasticity (to compensate for physical weakening) and operational cost reduction to a severely dated system. Its meant to cover over what physical hardening and labor should be doing at a lower price. The end result is just opening a security issue.

FWIW I have long heard rumors the Chinese have already extensively gathered secure data on nearly all our SCADA networks. Its probably so they can see how one of our sewage treatment plants work so they can build the came (free intellectual property), but all that shows is how easy it is to gain access.
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You really think that someone or some country hacks into our SCADA systems just to be able to build a better mousetrap for themselves at a cost savings.
Come on. The Value of control over our systems is outright enormous , the consequences are priceless to us here in the US. The damage one can do to our power grid or water and waste water systems is staggering.
I have seen the remote control one can do with a SCADA system from a phone halfway around the world.
 
Sierrasparky said:
You really think that someone or some country hacks into our SCADA systems just to be able to build a better mousetrap for themselves at a cost savings.
Come on. The Value of control over our systems is outright enormous , the consequences are priceless to us here in the US. The damage one can do to our power grid or water and waste water systems is staggering.
I have seen the remote control one can do with a SCADA system from a phone halfway around the world.
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I am well aware of what SCADA can do, heck one could trip 2,000 345kv breakers in under 2 seconds across a hundred bulk generating pants scattered around the country if need be.


But other countries can benefit from the data SCADA brings. SCADA gives intimate details of gas/water/power/material/transportation flows that gives tremendous insight into the hard mechanics of a system. Something as simple as seeing how traffic lights are programed to change in sequence can give away the equations to traffic management. That intellectual property could be used on a traffic light system anywhere in the world. One of the biggest things countries like China and those developing/in business look for is intellectual property. SCADA is fruit market for that.

Im not saying this is done in the open or for malicious intent, but data can be mined.
 
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mbrooke said:
I am well aware of what SCADA can do, heck one could trip 2,000 345kv breakers in under 2 seconds across a hundred bulk generating pants scattered around the country if need be.


But other countries can benefit from the data SCADA brings. SCADA gives intimate details of gas/water/power/material/transportation flows that gives tremendous insight into the hard mechanics of a system. Something as simple as seeing how traffic lights are programed to change in sequence can give away the equations to traffic management. That intellectual property could be used on a traffic light system anywhere in the world. One of the biggest things countries like China and those developing/in business look for is intellectual property. SCADA is fruit market for that.

Im not saying this is done in the open or for malicious intent, but data can be mined.
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I am sorry for not thinking about the more benign aspects.
 
Wow. Thanks for sharing this here. The link was very helpful. I'm sure many people also found this very interesting. Speaking of, according to the Strategic Directions in the U.S. Electric Utility Sector Report, the power utilities industry is going through fundamental basic changes. The sixth-annual report was published Monday by Black and Veatch, a consultation and construction firm.
 
LillianB said:
Wow. Thanks for sharing this here. The link was very helpful. I'm sure many people also found this very interesting. Speaking of, according to the Strategic Directions in the U.S. Electric Utility Sector Report, the power utilities industry is going through fundamental basic changes. The sixth-annual report was published Monday by Black and Veatch, a consultation and construction firm.
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Welcome :D

Any links? :)
 
150106-1731 EST

LillianB:

Your link to http://personalmoneynetwork.com/moneyblog/2012/05/15/smart-utilities/ provides a biased unscientific report.

What a customer pays for electricity should be based on cost, and not on what the customer would like to pay. A free market economy works, and a fixed price economy does not work.

As an electrical engineering student you need to study economics as well as EE subjects. In particular study "elasticity of demand".

An electrical power system consists of a number of generators (sources), and very many loads.

The cost of generating electricity consists of fixed costs, and variable costs for a given generator. For different generators these will be different. Nuclear are almost all fixed cost and little variable (nuclear fuel is very cheap). Gas turbines are inexpensive for capital equipment, but expensive for fuel, and are almost instantaneous for turn on and off. In general fixed costs are somewhat independent of load. The variable costs probably are not constant per incremental increase in load. When a generator nears capacity saturation the load must be reduced, or there is a system crash (no power).

The short time average price of electricity is an effective way to adjust load to prevent a crash.

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gar said:
150106-1731 EST
What a customer pays for electricity should be based on cost, and not on what the customer
would like to pay. A free market economy works, and a fixed price economy does not work.
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speaking of price fixing..... ;-)

"Smart energy readers have been found overcharging. According to Reuters, 1,600 PG&E smart meters were found
over-charging customers for electricity in 2011. The company had been sued in 2009 by residents of the city of Bakersfield,
who said smart meters were overcharging. According to Houston, Texas, CBS affiliate KHOU, 5,200 smart meters were
discovered to be overcharging customers by seven kilowatt-hours per month in 2010."

 
150106-2351 EST

A few thousand meters out of a total of several million is a small percentage. Who proved that the meters were over charging? This information comes from a newspaper article or TV report. In one month a typical kWh usage may be about 1000 and 7 parts in 1000 is 0.7%. Close to the expect accuracy of the meter. How were the measurements made to check the meters?

My smart meter based on limited evaluation appears to be about correct. Certainly I don't have a 10% error. I do not have instrumentation sufficiently accurate to evaluate my smart meter. I can probably check within a few percent. The meter department of a utility should be monitored by the public service commission to verify that the installed meters are working to specification.

In our area I do not believe we have big bad utilities using defective meters. They are possibly big and bad in some other ways.

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150107-1010 EST

To a large extent we have a free market economy.

I was buying printed circuit board stock, 1/16" glass epoxy with copper foil bonded to the epoxy substrate, prior to Nixon's price controls. Somewhat after price controls were initiatred PC stock became almost impossible to obtain because copper in other applications produced a greater return. Prices were not able to adjust based on supply and demand.

Look at how gasoline prices have changed recently. The price is adjusting as a function of supply and demand.

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gar said:
150107-1010 EST

To a large extent we have a free market economy.
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I disagree; or at least we disagree on what it means. In any market the large players manipulate things in order to drive the small players out and maximize their own profit margin. There are plenty of examples of small players with better products being bought out by larger players just to shoot them in the head.

Gasoline prices are also a result of large player manipulation of the market.
 
150107-1135 EST

ggunn:

Certainly there are distortions in the real world and we don't have a perfect free economy. But if you compare the US over a long time frame from the early 1800s with most of the rest of the world we have been the primary producers of ideas and products because of a relatively free economy. There have been and are monopolies that distort the free economy idea. But I don't think a long discussion on this is justified in this forum.

Back to electric pricing. If the price of electricity is set at a fixed rate, and not allowed to vary based on demand, then optimum allocation of resources will not occur. To prevent blackouts excess generating capacity has to be built to cover peak demand. This is not an optimum design from the perspective of allocation of resources. It is probably far better to let price vary vs time to force demand vs time to change.

Back to security. Physical protection of assets is needed. Data security is needed. This means there should be no physical (including RF) connection between the grid information network and any other communication system. Further it probably should be broken into smaller networks where no interconnection between those smaller networks could disrupt another one.

In a true Aiken computer system (Harvard) the program space is totally and physically independent of the data space. You can not change the program from the data space. In the von Neumann system both program and data can be stored (usually are) in the same memory space. For example stacks are often stored in the middle of a program. Writing data (some other program) in a program will modify the execution of the program. A neat idea, but should never be done.

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gar said:
150107-1135 EST

ggunn:

Certainly there are distortions in the real world and we don't have a perfect free economy. But if you compare the US over a long time frame from the early 1800s with most of the rest of the world we have been the primary producers of ideas and products because of a relatively free economy. There have been and are monopolies that distort the free economy idea. But I don't think a long discussion on this is justified in this forum.
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I agree that this isn't the place to discuss this. On the issue itself we'll just have to agree to disagree.
 
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