Power Grid Resilience to Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Disturbances: A Literature Review

Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) disturbances have been observed, along with other cyber and physical attacks, as a potential threat to modern digitized power grids and electronic devices. While the EMP attacks are not lethal to human, they bring extremely harmful and unrecoverable damages to electronics. Irrespective of the type of the EMP attacks, either nuclear or nonnuclear, EMPs are considered among the high-impact low-probability (HILP) events in power grids, detection, modelling, and mitigation against which is a necessity to ensure the grid resilience and is in high demand nationally and globally. This paper will provide a literature review on the EMP threats and includes a background on the EMP weapons, EMP attack theories, EMP detection methods. It will also describe the EMP-engendered damages, as well as protection functions and equipment used to mitigate against the future EMP threats.