Harold Vincent Poor

Another important issue related to advanced sensing and control is grid Secu-
rity. The physical security of the grid has always been a concern, but with greater
reliance on cyber-infrastructure comes great vulnerability to cyber-attacks, which
of course are commonplace in other cyber-infrastructures such as the Internet.
Two types of attacks on the grid involve malicious interference with situational
awareness of grid operators. One of these is a data injection attack, in which sensors
are compromised in such a way that grid operators falsely see a problem with the
grid and react to correct it in a way that harms grid Operation. Another is a physical
injection attack, in which a malicious actor alters the actual grid Operation (perhaps
by a cyber-attack on a power plant) while modifying sensor measurement so that
grid operators are unaware of this alteration. In either case, such attacks can lead
to cascading failures, tripped generators, or other grid outages, so guarding against
such attacks is a critical issue as the reliance on automation and Information Sys-
tems to control the grid becomes more prevalent.
A further aspect of refined grid situational awareness at the distribution level is
smart metering, in which usage at individual consumers4 premises is measured and
reported frequently (e. g., multiple times per hour). This has advantages both for
the energy producers, in terms of more accurate load prediction and the ability to
use adaptive pricing to smooth load over time, and for energy consumers, in terms
of greater awareness of energy use and potential control of appliances, storage and
other devices to minimize costs. The advantages of smart metering come, however,
with the potential for compromised consumer privacy, as smart meter data can be
used to infer in-home activity. Thus, a tradeoff between privacy concerns and grid
efficiency arises in the deployment of smart meters.
With distributed (and more democratized) generation and storage, and the
consequent two-directional nature of energy flow, the marketing of energy be-
comes a much more diverse activity than when only large entities are involved in
energy production. In particular, this new model gives rise to so-called energy pro-
sumers who both produce and consume energy. This creates a distributed energy
market in which energy is traded among prosumers, and between prosumers and
the grid. Many models for such a market have been proposed and studied, inclu-
ding game-theoretic and other methods, and this is an evolving field. A related
concept is that of a microgrid, which is a small grid, perhaps the size of a neighbor-
hood or campus, comprising energy sources, storage capabilities and loads. Such a
microgrid can be self-contained or tied to a main grid, and its control requires an
energy trading mechanism as well.
Although the above-mentioned areas are among the most important in smart
grid development, this is a very extensive area of technology development, and
many other important aspects of this development have necessarily been exclu-
ded here in order to keep this presentation to a manageable length. Some such
issues include the development of the power electronic devices that are needed

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