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Description
The electric transmission grid is conventionally treated as a fixed asset and is operated around a single topology. Though several instances of switching transmission lines for corrective mechaism, congestion management, and minimization of losses can be found in literature, the idea of co-optimizing transmission with generation dispatch has not been

The electric transmission grid is conventionally treated as a fixed asset and is operated around a single topology. Though several instances of switching transmission lines for corrective mechaism, congestion management, and minimization of losses can be found in literature, the idea of co-optimizing transmission with generation dispatch has not been widely investigated. Network topology optimization exploits the redundancies that are an integral part of the network to allow for improvement in dispatch efficiency. Although, the concept of a dispatchable network initially appears counterintuitive questioning the wisdom of switching transmission lines on a more regu-lar basis, results obtained in the previous research on transmission switching with a Direct Current Optimal Power Flow (DCOPF) show significant cost reductions. This thesis on network topology optimization with ACOPF emphasizes the need for additional research in this area. It examines the performance of network topology optimization in an Alternating Current (AC) setting and its impact on various parameters like active power loss and voltages that are ignored in the DC setting. An ACOPF model, with binary variables representing the status of transmission lines incorporated into the formulation, is written in AMPL, a mathematical programming language and this optimization problem is solved using the solver KNITRO. ACOPF is a non-convex, nonlinear optimization problem, making it a very hard problem to solve. The introduction of bi-nary variables makes ACOPF a mixed integer nonlinear programming problem, further increasing the complexity of the optimization problem. An iterative method of opening each transmission line individually before choosing the best solution has been proposed as a purely investigative approach to studying the impact of transmission switching with ACOPF. Economic savings of up to 6% achieved using this approach indicate the potential of this concept. In addition, a heuristic has been proposed to improve the computational efficiency of network topology optimization. This research also makes a comparative analysis between transmission switching in a DC setting and switching in an AC setting. Results presented in this thesis indicate significant economic savings achieved by controlled topology optimization, thereby reconfirming the need for further examination of this idea.
ContributorsPotluri, Tejaswi (Author) / Hedman, Kory (Thesis advisor) / Vittal, Vijay (Committee member) / Heydt, Gerald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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Description
The large distributed electric power system is a hierarchical network involving the

transportation of power from the sources of power generation via an intermediate

densely connected transmission network to a large distribution network of end-users

at the lowest level of the hierarchy. At each level of the hierarchy (generation/ trans-

mission/ distribution), the system

The large distributed electric power system is a hierarchical network involving the

transportation of power from the sources of power generation via an intermediate

densely connected transmission network to a large distribution network of end-users

at the lowest level of the hierarchy. At each level of the hierarchy (generation/ trans-

mission/ distribution), the system is managed and monitored with a combination of

(a) supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA); and (b) energy management

systems (EMSs) that process the collected data and make control and actuation de-

cisions using the collected data. However, at all levels of the hierarchy, both SCADA

and EMSs are vulnerable to cyber attacks. Furthermore, given the criticality of the

electric power infrastructure, cyber attacks can have severe economic and social con-

sequences.

This thesis focuses on cyber attacks on SCADA and EMS at the transmission

level of the electric power system. The goal is to study the consequences of three

classes of cyber attacks that can change topology data. These classes include: (i)

unobservable state-preserving cyber attacks that only change the topology data; (ii)

unobservable state-and-topology cyber-physical attacks that change both states and

topology data to enable a coordinated physical and cyber attack; and (iii) topology-

targeted man-in-the-middle (MitM) communication attacks that alter topology data

shared during inter-EMS communication. Specically, attack class (i) and (ii) focus on

the unobservable attacks on single regional EMS while class (iii) focuses on the MitM

attacks on communication links between regional EMSs. For each class of attacks,

the theoretical attack model and the implementation of attacks are provided, and the

worst-case attack and its consequences are exhaustively studied. In particularly, for

class (ii), a two-stage optimization problem is introduced to study worst-case attacks

that can cause a physical line over

ow that is unobservable in the cyber layer. The long-term implication and the system anomalies are demonstrated via simulation.

For attack classes (i) and (ii), both mathematical and experimental analyses sug-

gest that these unobservable attacks can be limited or even detected with resiliency

mechanisms including load monitoring, anomalous re-dispatches checking, and his-

torical data comparison. For attack class (iii), countermeasures including anomalous

tie-line interchange verication, anomalous re-dispatch alarms, and external contin-

gency lists sharing are needed to thwart such attacks.
ContributorsZhang, Jiazi (Author) / Sankar, Lalitha (Thesis advisor) / Hedman, Kory (Committee member) / Kosut, Oliver (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
The electric power system is one of the largest, most complicated, and most important cyber-physical systems in the world. The link between the cyber and physical level is the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems and Energy Management Systems (EMS). Their functions include monitoring the real-time system operation

The electric power system is one of the largest, most complicated, and most important cyber-physical systems in the world. The link between the cyber and physical level is the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems and Energy Management Systems (EMS). Their functions include monitoring the real-time system operation through state estimation (SE), controlling the system to operate reliably, and optimizing the system operation efficiency. The SCADA acquires the noisy measurements, such as voltage angle and magnitude, line power flows, and line current magnitude, from the remote terminal units (RTUs). These raw data are firstly sent to the SE, which filters all the noisy data and derives the best estimate of the system state. Then the estimated states are used for other EMS functions, such as contingency analysis, optimal power flow, etc.

In the existing state estimation process, there is no defense mechanism for any malicious attacks. Once the communication channel between the SCADA and RTUs is hijacked by the attacker, the attacker can perform a man-in-middle attack and send data of its choice. The only step that can possibly detect the attack during the state estimation process is the bad data detector. Unfortunately, even the bad data detector is unable to detect a certain type of attack, known as the false data injection (FDI) attacks.

Diagnosing the physical consequences of such attacks, therefore, is very important to understand system stability. In this thesis, theoretical general attack models for AC and DC attacks are given and an optimization problem for the worst-case overload attack is formulated. Furthermore, physical consequences of FDI attacks, based on both DC and AC model, are addressed. Various scenarios with different attack targets and system configurations are simulated. The details of the research, results obtained and conclusions drawn are presented in this document.
ContributorsLiang, Jingwen (Author) / Sankar, Lalitha (Thesis advisor) / Kosut, Oliver (Thesis advisor) / Hedman, Kory (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015