Microgrid Cybersecurity: Protecting and Building the Grid of the Future

Superstorm Sandy launched a wave of microgrid advocacy by revealing how easily wind and water could crush a major metropolitan power grid. Five years later, North America saw similar destruction with Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. As devastating as these events were, none compare to the threat of a major cyber attack on the American electrical utility grid. Microgrid cybersecurity is of utmost importance.

This new threat is worse because it often comes with less warning than acts of nature. It carries the potential to take down larger swaths of the electricity system for longer periods of time because of the risk of cascading failures. Security experts describe a cyber attack against the power grid as a form of asymmetrical warfare, the equivalent of destroying a society by cutting off delivery of food and water, healthcare, commerce, and communications. Contemporary economies run on electricity. Without electricity, they seize up.

Microgrids are increasingly part of that recovery plan because they can provide an electrified oasis during a power outage.

Download the new report from Microgrid Knowledge, courtesy of S&C Electric Co., that explores the threat of cyber attacks and why microgrid cybersecurity is crucial to the grid of the future.