Defending Against Adversarial Attacks by Energy Storage Facility

TL;DR

This paper explores how adversarial attacks threaten power grid security by disrupting load forecasts, and proposes energy storage investment as a novel physical defense mechanism to mitigate these risks.

Contribution

It introduces the first approach of using energy storage systems as a physical defense against adversarial attacks in smart grid systems.

Findings

A 5% adversarial attack can increase Texas power generation costs by 17%.

Higher wind energy penetration amplifies attack costs, reaching 23%.

Energy storage systems can effectively defend against adversarial attacks.

Abstract

Adversarial attacks on data-driven algorithms applied in the power system will be a new type of threat to grid security. Literature has demonstrated that the adversarial attack on the deep-neural network can significantly mislead the load fore-cast of a power system. However, it is unclear how the new type of attack impacts the operation of the grid system. In this research, we manifest that the adversarial algorithm attack induces a significant cost-increase risk which will be exacerbated by the growing penetration of intermittent renewable energy. In Texas, a 5% adversarial attack can increase the total generation cost by 17% in a quarter, which accounts for around $20 million. When wind-energy penetration increases to over 40%, the 5% adversarial attack will inflate the genera-tion cost by 23%. Our research discovers a novel approach to defending against the adversarial attack: investing in the energy-storage system. All current literature focuses on developing algorithms to defend against adversarial attacks. We are the first research revealing the capability of using the facility in a physical system to defend against the adversarial algorithm attack in a system of the Internet of Things, such as a smart grid system.