HOW NEW ENERGY HELPS ENERGY SYSTEM CYBER-SECURITY

Fact Check: Wind Plant Owners Are Leaders In Cyber-Security And Grid Reliability

David Ward, July 4, 2014 (American Wind Energy Association)

“…Cyber-security in the energy industry is an important news story…that has little to nothing to do with renewable energy…In reality, wind plant owners and operators employ some of the most sophisticated cyber-security defenses in use in any industry…[U]tility-scale [wind] installations that are connected to the high-voltage power system through a single plant-level power substation [connect to grid operators and plant operators by supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) communications systems and are no different from any other type of power plant]…[S]ophisticated power conversion equipment in wind turbines (which itself is very secure) [is absent in almost all other types of power plants and] provides an additional firewall against an ill-intentioned cyber-attacker…Based on their size alone, large conventional power plants pose a much greater risk [than wind] for an attack aimed at causing a destabilizing loss of generation…[A] recent blog post by computer security firm Symantec about a recent attack by a group of attackers known as Dragonfly…[mentions] the unremarkable fact that [just] one of the more than 1,000 companies affected by the cyber-attack does some share of its business in the renewable energy sector…” click here for more

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