Security and Reliability Perspectives in Cyber-Physical Smart Grids

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are widely deployed in electric power systems to improve system monitoring, control, protection, and data processing capabilities. However, power systems' dependency on cyber infrastructure inevitably increases the risk of system degradation resulting from cyber-attacks. In addition, the intrinsic failures of cyber elements and the design defects of cyber-physical system architecture affect power system reliability. These two concerns are generally termed as “cyber-physical security” and “cyberphysical reliability”, respectively. While the two topics have received considerable research efforts in recent years, their distinctions still remain obscure among researchers. This paper succinctly summarizes the scopes, approaches, and major advancements in the two research areas with representative examples provided to clarify their distinctions. By revealing the inherent features of cyber-physical security and cyber-physical reliability in smart grids, this paper is written with the objective of facilitating future studies in these two areas.