Considerations for Secure Data Exchange to Achieve Cyber-Physical Situational Awareness in the Electric Grid

Cyber-physical situational awareness (CPSA) is crucial for understanding the intricacies and relationships within the interconnected electric grid, especially with increasing distributed energy resource penetration. However, beyond developing the necessary cyber-physical data fusion techniques, another critical challenge to address is the multi-level, multi-owner data exchange process and its cybersecurity. Therefore, in this paper we explore the considerations for secure data exchange for performing CPSA analysis and present the current landscape alongside existing gaps, potential solutions, and next steps. Additionally, we present a case study related to the project team's CPSA sensor and implementation architecture development, called griDNA, and how these potential solutions could apply and form a secure data exchange framework.

I. Introduction

With the continually evolving cyber-physical grid and rising penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs), cyber-physical situational awareness (CPS A) is needed for holistic observability into the interconnected, decentralized electric grid [1]. Processes such as IEEE 1547 DER grid-support functions and communication-assisted protection schemes increase reliance on communications [2], [3]. The highly intercon-nected nature of the grid with growing, distributed grid-edge presence requires greater visibility into the cyber and physical system states. It is no longer sufficient for the grid to only monitor the physical power system - the cyber-physical system must be monitored and understood to efficiently operate the evolving, cyber-physical grid as well as respond to disturbances quickly and adaptively. Achieving CPSA in the grid is a challenging goal, especially due to the multi-level nature of the grid (e.g., establishing trust between utility, aggregator, customer levels), the lack of existent cyber-physical sensors to gather necessary concurrent data, and techniques to fuse cyber-physical data for full system CPSA.