MIT engineers say solar, batteries could stabilize grid after cyberattacks
MIT researchers have proposed the creation of a local electricity market consisting of grid-edge and internet-of-things (IoT) devices, including residential solar panels, that could be used to achieve power grid resilience in instances of cyber-physicial attacks.
Their research paper – “Resilience of the electric grid through trustable IoT-coordinated assets,” recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – says the increased penetration of distributed energy resources in the electricity grid could introduce new vulnerabilities in the form of cyberattacks, which can cause significant challenges to grid resilience.
The paper says decentralized, grid-edge devices, found close to the consumer rather than near central power plants, substations or transmission lines, as well as IoT devices – otherwise known as physical objects that contain sensors and software that connect to the internet – could form local electricity markets to be called upon in instances of unforeseen outages.
The MIT team have proposed a new framework – Eureica (Efficient, Ultra-REsilient, IoT-Coordinated Assets) – which begins with the assumption that most grid-edge devices will become IoT devices, therefore allowing rooftop solar panels, EV chargers, and smart thermostats to wirelessly connect to larger networks of similarly independent and distributed devices.
The research paper introduces an algorithm that, in instances where the main grid becomes compromised, would kick in for each local electricity market to determine which devices are trustworthy. It would then identify which combination of trustworthy devices would best mitigate the power failure, then calculate and communicate the power to be pumped into the grid or reduced from the grid. The owners of the devices would be compensated for their participation through the market.
The MIT team tested their proposed framework against a number of possible grid attack scenarios in the research paper, including potential weather events that could shut off the transmission of energy at various levels and nodes throughout a power grid.
In each test, between 5% and 40% of the power was lost. In each tested scenario, the researchers found their algorithm was capable of restabilizing the grid and mitigating the attack or power failure.
The researchers say the results demonstrate that grid-edge devices, such as rooftop solar panels, EV chargers, batteries and smart thermostats, could all be tapped to stabilize the power grid in the event of an attack.
“All these small devices can do their little bit in terms of adjusting their consumption,” says Anu Annaswamy, a research scientist in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. “If we can harness our smart dishwashers, rooftop panels, and EVs, and put our combined shoulders to the wheel, we can really have a resilient grid.”
The team also acknowledges that to put their proposed local electricity markets in place, a network of grid-edge devices would require support from customers, policymakers, and local officials, as well as innovations such as advanced power inverters that enable EVs to inject power back into the grid.
“This is just the first of many steps that have to happen in quick succession for this idea of local electricity markets to be implemented and expanded upon,” Annaswamy says. “But we believe it’s a good start.”
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