Challenge and objective

  • The state of a substation is continuously measured for monitoring, control and protection purposes, using synchrophasor measurements.
  • The IEC 61850 standard defines communication protocols for electrical substations, including synchrophasor measurement transmission.
  • However, IEC 61850 does not properly address cyber security, leaving this critical infrastructure highly vulnerable to cyber attacks.

Work performed

  • Developed mechanism and prototype for delayed integrity check for synchrophasor measurements.
  • PMU traffic is sent unmodified as before, but a special device makes a local copy of each message and calculates a Hash-based Message Authentication Code (HMAC) which is sent separately.
  • Another unit collects and checks HMAC value.

Significant results

  • Developed a mechanism for delayed integrity check for synchrophasor measurements, and validated a prototype.

Impact for distribution system innovation

  • Protection of synchrophasor data and other highly time-sensitive traffic.

Oddbjørn Gjerde

WP2 Lead
+47 99 730 027
Name
Oddbjørn Gjerde
Title
WP2 Lead
Organization
SINTEF Energi AS

 

Reference in CINELDI