...let’s talk about High-Impact Low-Frequency (HILF) risks to the North American power system.
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) recently convened a two-day, closed-session workshop of almost 120 experts from government, academia and the electric industry – including representatives from investor-owned utilities, cooperatives and municipal utilities – to discuss these HILF risks, and ways to mitigate their impacts.
From electromagnetic pulse (EMP) events and geomagnetic storms to coordinated cyber and physical attacks and pandemic disease, these risks may be rare, but they have the potential for wide-ranging impacts across all of North America’s critical infrastructures, including, obviously, the electric grid.
NERC defines HILF events as “those risks whose likelihood of occurrence are uncertain relative to other threats, but could significantly impact the system were they to occur.”
The potential for coordinated cyber attacks has been widely discussed of late, most recently by CBS News’ 60 Minutes, so I’ll eschew discussing that for the moment. Instead, I’d like to focus on EMP and geomagnetic storm events for the purpose of this discussion.
According to an NERC executive brief published in late August, the bulk power system, like other critical infrastructures, is vulnerable to EMP and geomagnetic storms. This vulnerability, it says, is high, due to the nature of the system. “Essentially all of the system’s critical conductive elements are exposed to this threat, as are many of its critical control elements,” the brief states. “As a result, deploying controls and equipment that could prevent damage from EMP may require considerable expertise, time and financial resources.”
The NERC brief also noted that the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, established in the Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act of 2001, specified in its 2008 report a number of mitigation measures for the electric industry. These included:
· Protect high-value assets through hardening.
· Assure there are adequate communication assets dedicated or available to electrical system operators.
· Protect the use of emergency power supplies and fuel delivery, and importantly, provide for their sustained use as part of the protection of critical loads.
· Separate the present interconnected systems, particularly the Eastern Interconnection, into several nonsynchronous connected subregions or electrical islands.
· Install substantially more black start generation units coupled with specific transmission that can be readily isolated to balancing loads.
· Improve, extend, and exercise recovery capabilities.
As serious discussions, and looming federal mandates, are taking place to connect all three of the United States’ electrical interconnections, Bullet #4 especially caught my attention. I haven’t seen a lot of public discussion on the importance of “islanding” within the interconnections, or across a nation-wide grid.
I’d really like to hear from anyone working on this issue within the industry. You can comment below, or e-mail me at
krowland@energycentral.com
Kate Rowland is the managing editor of Intelligent Utility® magazine.
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