Critical Infrastructure Resilience and Sustainability Reader

4The Vulnerable Powergrid

CHAPTER MENU

• 4.1 What Is the Grid?
• 4.2 The North American Grid
  • 4.2.1 Grid Structure
  • 4.2.2 ACE and Kirchhoff’s Law
  • 4.2.3 Anatomy of a Blackout
• 4.3 Threat Analysis
  • 4.3.1 Attack Scenario 1: Disruption of Fuel Supply to Power Plants
  • 4.3.2 Attack Scenario 2: Destruction of Major Transformers
  • 4.3.3 Attack Scenario 3: Disruption of SCADA Communications
  • 4.3.4 Attack Scenario 4: Creation of a Cascading Transmission Failure
• 4.4 From Death Rays to Vertical Integration
  • 4.4.1 Early Regulation
  • 4.4.2 Deregulation and EPACT 1992
  • 4.4.3 Electricity Sector ES‐ISAC
• 4.5 Out of Orders 888 and 889 Comes Chaos
  • 4.5.1 Economics Versus Physics
  • 4.5.2 What Increases SOC?
  • 4.5.3 NIMBY Versus Environmentalism
  • 4.5.4 A Change of Heart
• 4.6 The Architecture of Twenty‐First Century Grids
  • 4.6.1 The Future Is Storage
  • 4.6.2 SOC Is Reduced
  • 4.6.3 Economics of Electrification
• 4.7 Discussion
• References

In 2000, the National Academy of Engineering named modern power grids – those vast electrical power generation, transmission, and distribution networks that span the country – the top engineering technology of the twentieth century. In the Academy's opinion, the Power Grid surpassed invention of the automobile, airplane, moon shot, atomic bomb, delivery of safe and abundant water, and modern computer as the most important engineering accomplishment. Electrical power is what makes modern society tick. It is essential. So, it comes as no surprise that the grid is one of the ...