SOURCE: NRECA; Design: Kevin Kepple.
According to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) 2023 State of Reliability report, America’s grid faces continued cyber and physical threats from hostile nation-states and domestic terrorism.
NERC CIP-014 is a standard that directs utilities to identify substations and other assets that, if taken out of service, could cascade into widespread outages. Utilities are required to perform security audits, conduct risk assessments and develop appropriate resiliency plans. The number of substations covered by this requirement is relatively small. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has recently directed NERC to review its physical security standard in light of increased attacks.
Some experts are recommending that new substations be configured with the most critical and sensitive components inside the station. For existing substations, cooperatives can consider measures such as higher fencing, intrusion sensors, brighter security lighting, infrared cameras and shot-detection sensors. Staff monitoring the sensors and cameras could be trained to immediately contact local law enforcement. While none of these measures will prevent a determined attacker, they could delay or deter an attacker and provide local law enforcement time to respond to the scene. Cooperatives could also develop a plan of response if substation equipment is damaged and they are without use of that substation for several weeks.
Many cooperatives currently subscribe to alerts from the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center (E-ISAC). Since 1999, E-ISAC has worked to reduce the utility industry’s exposer to cyber and physical attacks. The program provides participants with alerts and bulletins to current and emerging threats.
There is little indication that physical and cyber threats to electric utility assets will diminish.