On Securing the Global Economical Dispatch in DC Microgrid Clusters: An Event-Driven Approach

This article investigates the effects of cyber attacks on the global economical dispatch of vicinity interconnected DC MG clusters. First, it articulates an analytical detection and mitigation strategy integrated with logical operation aided event generators for retaining the feasible operation region of the economic dispatch problem in multiple MG clusters. Second, separate defense actions are designed for leader and follower nodes in a MG, unlike common mitigation action for all nodes in previous works. Third, a variable averaging gain for processing the neighbor’s information at every node is proposed. It aids in distinguishing an actual instance of power generation unit saturation from a cyber attack. The entire system is modelled in a real time digital simulator and the results obtained demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm for attaining a secure global economic dispatch. It also exhibits an important feature of prioritising resiliency over economics by transitioning from economic dispatch mode to supplying to critical loads under adverse events. Finally, for testing the application of the proposed algorithm to a large-scale system, it is extended to five interconnected MG clusters containing 20 DC-DC power electronic converters.
Note to Practitioners
—Cybersecurity becomes a critical concern for vicinity connected microgrids as an increasing amount of IoT devices are adopted for communication, monitoring, and operation support purposes. This cyber-physical structure provides an attack surface because adversaries can compromise the physical structure by attacking its dependent cyberspace. For mitigation of the attacks, twining the efforts of securing from both the cyber and the physical testbed is required. As such, this paper provides the owners and operators with in-depth knowledge about the requirement of different control strategies for the leader and follower nodes in the interconnected network of microgrids. It also emphasizes the need for prioritising resilience under adverse events. The technique is simple and user-friendly for implementation in the already existing control strategies. The real-time simulation results prove its effectiveness so that it can be put into practice.