Novel Comprehensive Resilience Strategy for Modern Substations

Protection of critical infrastructure has long been paramount to the security and defense of the United States and many countries
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. Traditionally, protection has focused on a narrow approach to either cyber threats, High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP), Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) and Intentional Electromagnetic Interference (IEMI), or to more prevalent issues such as small arms ballistics, wind, flooding, and fire that could disrupt supply and delivery. Utilities, for example, have long focused on providing resilience to inclement weather so as to avoid power outages that adversely impact their customers. However, many governments worldwide are now requiring protection of critical infrastructure. For utilities, this most often requires an added layer of protection against cyber threats, HEMP, EMP, and IEMI. This paper describes a novel approach to utilities that provides comprehensive protection of modern substations not only from cyber-attacks, HEMP, EMP, IEMI, and other malicious events, but also from small arms ballistics, wind, flooding, and fire. Utilizing shielding systems capable of providing shielding effectiveness compliant with MIL-STD-188-125 and components that comply with IEC 61850, this paper reviews a resilient substation system that is reliable, cost effective, and easy to install. Further, these systems are compact and can be quickly deployed to a new location providing a comprehensive, flexible, and adaptive solution to hardening substations and transmission stations. A real-world example is provided to document the efficiencies in the comprehensive protection system. While previous papers
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have focused on the design of a substation system, this paper documents long-term performance and extended deployment.