A real-time federated co-simulator for cyber security analysis of microgrid systems

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Effective modeling and simulation of complex power system disturbances especially those stemming from intentional cyber attack represents an open engineering research and development problem with recent national focus. The Northeast Blackout of 2003 and the December 2013 large-scale power outage in the Greater Toronto Area clearly demonstrate the fragility of the Canadian grid to incidental and natural disruptions; given the increasing dependency of power systems on communications and computation, intentional cyber attack would thus have potential for great devastation. Simulators are a cost-effective and safer alternative to conducting experiments with prototype or real systems. They can also be executed faster than in real-time for efficient what-if analysis. Thus, tools for modeling and simulation of smart grid systems are of paramount importance to power system stakeholders for judicious planning and preparedness for contingencies. Challenges stem from the need to develop intelligent models of cyber-physical interdependencies within emerging smart grid systems, the facility to portray realistic and meaningful cyber attacks, and the ability to balance precision, scale and complexity. This three-way collaborative Engage Plus project builds upon an existing Engage-based collaboration amongst Professor Deepa Kundur, University of Toronto, Institut de recherche - Hydro-Québec (IREQ) and Opal RT Technologies, Inc. to develop a cyber-physical co-simulator platform for the purpose of studying the impacts of cyber attacks on emerging microgrid systems. The results of the project will benefit Microgrid and Cyber Security projects within IREQ by providing a framework to test communication and control strategies. Furthermore, the real-time software integration insights arising from the research will be transferred to Opal-RT to equip them with knowledge to better support their existing and future clients.