Challenge and objective

  • The state of a substation is continuously measured for monitoring, control and protection purposes, using synchrophasor measurements. The IEC 61850 standard defines communication protocols for electrical substations, including synchrophasor measurement transmission. However, IEC 61850 does not properly address cyber security, leaving this critical infrastructure highly vulnerable to cyber attacks.

Work performed

  • Developed mechanism and prototype for delayed integrity check for synchrophasor measurements. PMU traffic is sent unmodified as before, but a special device makes a local copy of each message and calculates a Hash-based Message Authentication Code (HMAC) which is sent separately. Another unit collects and checks HMAC value

Significant results

  • Developed a mechanism for delayed integrity check for synchrophasor measurements, and validated a prototype

Impact for distribution system innovation

  • Protection of synchrophasor data and other highly time-sensitive traffic.

Merkebu Zenebe Degefa

WP2 Lead
+ 47 930 91 984
Name
Merkebu Zenebe Degefa
Title
WP2 Lead
Organization
SINTEF Energi AS

 

Reference in CINELDI