Theses and Dissertations Collection

In this thesis, different methods for power grid vulnerability assessment under cyber threats are developed and utilized. A new combined method is developed for better susceptibility analysis. Critical lines are identified using several different methods and remedial action schemes are examined on these critical lines to observe the reliability and resiliency improvement of the system. Furthermore, a new method to detect and fix false measurements on inputs to remedial action schemes is presented. With this false measurement detection method, this type of attack is more difficult as the malicious party needs to compromise a large number of meters in order to inject a manipulated measurement. As a result, actions by remedial action schemes are taken based on more reliable data and at the same time the true state of the local system is estimated. The required logic to correctly detect and fix the measurements are tested using the 118 bus IEEE test system.

The thesis concludes by presenting a novel approach to detect and fix false measurements developed in this project to ensure proper automatic action by remedial action schemes. It can be further developed and extended to provide an alternative way to improve system resiliency.