An Investigation on Feasibility and Security for Cyberattacks on Generator Synchronization Process

Electric power supply is crucial for the effective operation of many sectors such as manufacturing, health care, etc. Further, electrification of the transportation network including metro-rail systems and personal electric vehicles necessitates capacity expansion of power distribution system (PDS). Capacity expansion in PDSs is seeing a clear paradigm shift from component upgrades to the incorporation of distributed energy resources. Though renewable energy sources are attractive from the sustainability aspect, conventional generators are also essential for many applications such as maintaining the grid stability. In this article, for the first time, we report a new type of attack on the generators; attacks on the synchronization process, targeting the availability of generators. The threat model considered in this article is similar to the popular real-world attacks, such as “Stuxnet worm” or programmable logic controller root-kit attacks such as “Harvey,” however, the reported attack goal is novel. We propose a defense mechanism that can be decoupled from the network data and is named as physical layer security (PLS). We present theoretical analysis, simulation results, and experimental validation for the reported attack. We also propose an alternative implementation named as Level 0-1 security for cases where PLS may not be practical. The proposed defense is generic and can be extended to many other applications/attack vectors.