Smart Cities

Chapter 19Toward Resilience of the Electric Grid

Jiankang Wang

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

“Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised.”

- Denis Waitley

Chapter Menu

Electric Grids in Smart Cities

Threats to Electric Grids

Electric Grid Response under Threats

Defense against Threats to Electric Grids

Objectives

• • To understand the structure and basic operating principles of the electric grid, its connection to smart cities and interdependence with other critical infrastructures.
• • To understand possible threats to electric grids from natural disasters and malicious intents. As some of these threats have manifested themselves through historical events, others were recently enabled by advancement of smart cities' cyber infrastructures.
• • To understand the cyber and physical causal chains in the electric grid from initial threats to final consequences, and to show existing metrics that enable us to quantify these consequences and probabilities of their occurrences.
• • To discuss the responding mechanisms of the electric grid and other sections in smart cities, which prevent, intercept and mitigate these threats and make the electric grid resilient.

19.1 Electric Grids in Smart Cities

Electricity provides lifeblood to urban operations. Urban infrastructures are operated on electricity for food preservation, water treatment, heat and light, phone service, Internet, factories, hospitals, and ...