Towards Secured Smart Grid 2.0: Exploring Security Threats, Protection Models, and Challenges

TL;DR

This paper reviews security threats and defense strategies for Smart Grid 2.0, emphasizing vulnerabilities in communication, AI, and blockchain, and proposes future protection models for secure, sustainable energy systems.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive survey of security challenges in SG2 and suggests promising protection models like blockchain, PUFs, and trustworthy AI for future research.

Findings

Stakeholders vulnerable to substation attacks and malware

AI integration introduces new security challenges

Blockchain and PUFs are promising protection strategies

Abstract

Many nations are promoting the green transition in the energy sector to attain neutral carbon emissions by 2050. Smart Grid 2.0 (SG2) is expected to explore data-driven analytics and enhance communication technologies to improve the efficiency and sustainability of distributed renewable energy systems. These features are beyond smart metering and electric surplus distribution in conventional smart grids. Given the high dependence on communication networks to connect distributed microgrids in SG2, potential cascading failures of connectivity can cause disruption to data synchronization to the remote control systems. This paper reviews security threats and defense tactics for three stakeholders: power grid operators, communication network providers, and consumers. Through the survey, we found that SG2's stakeholders are particularly vulnerable to substation attacks/vandalism, malware/ransomware threats, blockchain vulnerabilities and supply chain breakdowns. Furthermore, incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into autonomous energy management in distributed energy resources of SG2 creates new challenges. Accordingly, adversarial samples and false data injection on electricity reading and measurement sensors at power plants can fool AI-powered control functions and cause messy error-checking operations in energy storage, wrong energy estimation in electric vehicle charging, and even fraudulent transactions in peer-to-peer energy trading models. Scalable blockchain-based models, physical unclonable function, interoperable security protocols, and trustworthy AI models designed for managing distributed microgrids in SG2 are typical promising protection models for future research.