Assessing the Impact of Cybersecurity Attacks on Power Systems

Cybersecurity is an emerging challenge for power systems, as it strongly affects their reliability and the whole energy system cost. The paper uses several Unit Commitments (UC) models, applying different methods to tackle renewables’ uncertainty. The selected power system is IEEE RTS 96. The UC models are used to assess the impact of different cybersecurity threats. The focus is to assess their impact on the total operating cost and the power grid adequacy to handle them. The comparison between the UC models shows that more robust UC models lead to higher total operating costs. The cost, unit dispatching, and energy mix evolution have a non-linear trend, depending on the power system characteristics and the cyberattacks types. However, the paper provides evidence of considerable price signals in the case of the examined cyberattacks. Each Transmission System Operator (TSO) should examine combinations of cyberattacks and operating conditions to identify crucial cases for system stability and power system cost operation. The applied methodology would also require substantial developments or supplementary approaches to assess cyberthreats at the distribution level.