The U.S. should implement standards to reduce the risk of cyberattacks on the power grid and should designate one agency responsible for overseeing grid cybersecurity, a new report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said.
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation, a national group of electricity grids, is responsible for applying such standards for the bulk power system. Yet none exist as of yet to govern distribution systems, which move power from the bulk system to homes and businesses, according to the report released Monday in Washington.
One federal agency should “have responsibility for working with industry and to have the appropriate regulatory authority to enhance cybersecurity preparedness, response and recovery across the electric power sector, including both bulk power and distribution systems,” the report recommended.
The report provides other recommendations to improve the grid over the next two decades as new technologies and services emerge.
With those recommendations, the grid likely can handle new demands it will face from such technology and service changes as a rise in electric-car use, and additional wind and solar power, whose limitations include changing weather conditions and siting constraints, the report said.
Among the report’s other recommendations are more federal control over siting of interstate transmission lines – especially in cases involving solar and wind power – and boosting industry-funded research and development.
No imminent danger
While the U.S. grid is not in any imminent danger, “the current regulatory framework, largely established in the 1930s, is mismatched to today’s grid,” Richard Schmalensee, professor of economics and management at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, said in a statement. The current system “operates under a fragmented and often inconsistent policy regime,” the report said.
Also without enough changes, “it is likely to be difficult to maintain acceptable reliability and electric rates,” the report said.
Texas, which has its own electricity grid separated from the nation’s two other main grids, or “interconnections,” has “moved forward aggressively” on renewable energy and on boosting efficiency, Schmalensee said.
The state, whose grid is run by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, also has worked “to incorporate public-policy considerations into transmission planning” as it works to build lines to bring wind power from the west to population centers in the eastern part of the state,” Schmalensee added.
“It really is at the forefront in a number of important respects,” he told a lunch event where the report was unveiled.
Cybersecurity and privacy
Highly complex communications systems will expand in the coming years into “every facet of grid control and operations,” the report said, raising the grid’s vulnerability to cyber attacks, the report said. The report cites an increase in “smart meters,” which collect data on household power use much more frequently than conventional meters, as an example.
Already communications in the electricity system are complicated because it has a diverse array devices and components, making it nearly impossible to prevent all attacks, the report said. As a result future efforts and standards to protect cybersecurity on the grid should focus not only on prevention but also on recovering and responding to cyberattacks, the report said.
“There is no perfect protection from cyberattacks,” Jerrold Grochow, a research affiliate with the MIT Energy Initiative, said at the lunch event.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology is working on developing standards for a diverse range of devices to work with one another, a process that “should be encouraged,” the report said.
The report also warned that privacy concerns could arise as electronic communications increase and more smart meters are used. No national privacy standards exist for the electricity sector, according to the report, which said it “will be important to develop rules and systems to maintain the privacy of data on customers’ electricity usage.”
“Consumers need to feel that their information is not going to show up on the Internet for all to see,” Grochow said.
Dynamic pricing
CenterPoint Energy, the Houston area’s transmission company and natural-gas provider, is installing smart meters on homes in the region. The meters are often cited as a way to usher in dynamic pricing instead of charging a single per-kilowatt-hour rate.
Texas was the first state that gave consumers the ability to see “intimate details of their electricity use,” Grochow said. The state’s Smart Meter Texas portal lets consumers with smart meters view daily reports of their power use down to 15-minute increments.
But the report warns more research on dynamic pricing is needed: “The behavior of residential consumers faced with dynamic pricing is not yet adequately understood.”
Environmental regulations
The report didn’t consider the role of future environmental regulations, Schmalensee said. Electricity industry officials and Republicans in Congress have raised concerns that two future rules for cutting air emissions from power plants have such high compliance costs that widespread plant retirements and shutdowns could occur, threatening grid reliability.
Industry officials have said federal agencies have legal mechanisms they should use to give an extension to power plants, especially to those that are deemed crucial to preserving reliability.
Gina McCarthy, EPA assistant administrator for air and radiation, has said the rules would cause only a modest level of retirements and shutdowns. Forty years of Clean Air Act regulations have never caused a reliability problem and provisions in the law allow the U.S. to resolve concerns over local reliability before they become reality, McCarthy told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Nov. 30.
Smart Meters – something to be afraid of? http://www.squidoo.com/beware-of-smart-meters