An Advanced Optimization Based Simulation Model to Study the Impact of Cyber-Physical Attacks on Power Systems

The promotion of energy internet causes external information to directly or indirectly affect power system control decisions through various business approaches. The interaction mechanism between power network and information network becomes increasingly complex. Modern power systems become more prone to cyber-attacks and physical attacks because of the high integration of information layer and physical layer. This paper provides an insight into the impacts of cyber and physical attacks on power systems, where the attacks are modeled in the form of mathematical (optimization) equations representing the attacks. Moreover, the cyber and physical attacks are modeled in the form of Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) problem. The authors have simulated cyber-attack on transmission lines and cyber-physical attack on both transmission lines and loads. The MILP problem is solved by commercial solver, CPLEX. A case study on a modified IEEE 14 bus test system is considered to demonstrate the results of this research. Simulation results on the test system show that the cyber and physical attacks on power systems could cause undesirable load curtailment and mitigation of such attacks becomes essential for secure operation of the electric grid. This research would enable the power system operators to understand the potentially damaging effects of cyber-physical attack and advance their knowledge about such attacks so that prevention and mitigation of attacks on the power systems is possible.