On the impact of cyberattacks on voltage control coordination by ReGen plants in smart grids

Wind power and Solar photovoltaic plants are expected to jointly produce a lion's share of renewable energy generation capacity needed to reach the target of having green energy around the globe. In this respect, investigation of voltage stability support and coordinated control are crucial step stones towards a future resilient power system. The ability to provide online voltage stability support from Renewable Generation plants highly depends on the communication infrastructure that allows an exchange of information between different grid assets. Any attempt to attack this communication system can lead to an unstable grid and in worst case, a complete blackout. Therefore, this paper illustrates the impact of cyberattacks on the voltage control coordination between the renewable generation plants and the system operator in microgrid settings. More specifically, this work focuses to show how time-varying delays and manipulation of exchanged information caused by cyberattacks can affect the controller performance. Finally, security solutions are proposed that make voltage control coordination resilient against these cyberattacks without adding additional delays to the process.