Revealing Cascading Failure Vulnerability in Power Grids Using
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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TPDS.2013.2295814, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems 1 Revealing Cascading Failure Vulnerability in Power Grids using Risk-Graph Yihai Zhu, Student Member, IEEE, Jun Yan, Student Member, IEEE, Yan Sun, Member, IEEE, and Haibo He, Senior Member, IEEE, Abstract—Security issues related to power grid networks have damage [1]. For example, the well-known Northeast blackout attracted the attention of researchers in many fields. Recently, in 2003 affected 55 million people and caused an estimated a new network model that combines complex network theories economic loss between $7 billions and $10 billions [2]. with power flow models was proposed. This model, referred to as the extended model, is suitable for investigating vulnerabilities in Large-scale power outage is often caused by cascading power grid networks. In this paper, we study cascading failures of failure. A cascading failure refers to a sequence of dependent power grids under the extended model. Particularly, we discover events, where the initial failure of one or more components that attack strategies that select target nodes (TNs) based on (i.e. substations and transmission lines) triggers the sequential load and degree do not yield the strongest attacks. Instead, we failure of other components [3], [4]. Triggers of the initial propose a novel metric, called the risk graph, and develop novel attack strategies that are much stronger than the load-based failures can be natural damage (e.g. the fall of trees), aging and degree-based attack strategies. The proposed approaches equipment, human errors, software and hardware faults, and so and the comparison approaches are tested on IEEE 57 and on. Within recent years, power grids are facing new threats, 118 bus systems and Polish transmission system. The results e.g. cyber-physical attacks [5], [6]. Therefore, malicious at- demonstrate that the proposed approaches can reveal the power tacks become new and potential triggers of cascading failures. grid vulnerability in terms of causing cascading failures more effectively than the comparison approaches. Many existing works have been proposed to investigate the vulnerability of power grids from the attack perspective. Index Terms—Power grid, Extended model, Cascading failure, Important challenges, however, still remain. First, developing Security, Attack, Risk graph reasonable models that can mimic cascading failures in reality NOMENCLATURE is still a critical challenge. In current literatures, there are α System Tolerance three popular models, pure topological models [7]–[9], pure M The number of target nodes power flow models [4], [10] and hybrid models [11]–[13]. M Each category has its own advantages and disadvantages. NASdegree Degree-based Node Attack Strategy M Second, finding stronger malicious attack strategies is one of NASES Exhaustive Search Node Attack Strategy M the key ways to investigate cascading failures. Although the NASload Load-based Node Attack Strategy M exhaustive search approach can yield the best attack from the NASriskgraph Riskgraph-based Node Attack Strategy NASM Reduced Search Space Node Attack Strategy attack performance point of view, it is sometimes computa- RSS tionally infeasible in practice [9]. Thus, practical and efficient OCF Sor The time of launching CFSor once AIGL Average Inverse Geodesic Length attack strategies need to be found. Finally, attackers might CFSor Cascading Failure Simulator have different knowledge of power grids, such as topological CL Connectivity Loss structures, electric features and real-time information. Under NAS Node Attack Strategy different levels of knowledge, attackers may adopt different NIRG Node Integrated Risk Graph attack strategies. NRG Node Risk Graph In this paper, we do not tackle the first challenge. Instead, extended model PoDN Percentage of Drop in Netability we choose a hybrid model, called the . Al- PTDFs Power Transfer Distribution Factors though hybrid models [11], [13] have been adopted to study RG Risk Graph the vulnerability of power grids, few existing studies have RRCS Round Recommended Combination Set discussed how cascading failures occur under hybrid models. cascading failure simulator TNs Target Nodes A reasonable (CFSor) under the extended model will be introduced. To address the second challenge, we study the node attack I. INTRODUCTION strategy (NAS) under the extended model to address how OWER grid is considered as one of the most signifi- to find stronger attacks. In this paper, an attack means an P cant infrastructures on the Earth. Within recent decades, attacker knocks down one or more nodes (i.e. substations). several large-scale power outages around the world seriously These removed nodes are referred to as target nodes (TNs). affected the livelihood of many people and caused great From the attacker’s point of view, attackers need to carefully choose a few TNs, aiming to maximize the damage. the The authors are with the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Biomed- ical Engineering, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI, 02881 USA(e- node attack strategy describes how the attacker chooses TNs. mail: fyhzhu,jyan,yansun,[email protected]) In addition, a stronger attack means that the initial removal 1045-9219 (c) 2013 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information. This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TPDS.2013.2295814, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems 2 of the TNs could yield larger percentage of drop in net- distribution factors (PTDFs). More discussions about existing ability (PoDN), which will be discussed in Section III-D. If cascading failure models are given in Section I in [16], the the attacker knows everything about a power grid and can supplementary file of this paper. model how cascading failures occur, the exhaustive search Different models have different advantages and disadvan- node attack strategy can yield the most serious damage. The tages. First, although pure topological models are useful to exhaustive search, however, is often not practical due to its develop malicious attack strategies, the related concepts and huge search space on a large-scale, even moderate-scale, power metrics are far from the physical characteristics of power grids. grid networks. Instead, we propose a reduced search space Thereby, these models are far from reflecting the fundamental node attack strategy or RSS node attack strategy in short. behaviors of cascading failures. Second, pure power flow The RSS node attack strategy can sharply reduce the search models are more accurate to reveal vulnerability of power space and achieve comparable attack performance to that of grids, and are mainly used to assess the security and reliability the exhaustive search node attack strategy. of power grid networks [10], [17]. However, a detailed analysis We also investigate the third challenge. To adopt the pro- of large-scale power grid is usually computationally expensive posed RSS node attack strategy, an attacker needs to know due to its complexity, nonlinearity, and dynamics [4]. Finally, the topology of power grid networks, as well as the system the extended model in [13] is a new angle in modeling tolerance factor that is defined as the capacity divided by the cascading failures. The power distribution under the extended initial load of a node. In practice, such tolerance factors may model is based on PTDFs [12]. Thus, the extended model not be known to attackers. Therefore, as the third task of this is more accurate than pure topological models in terms of paper, we investigate attack strategies under the assumption studying cascading failures. In addition, the calculation of that an attacker does not know the tolerance factors. We PTDFs is less complex than the detailed analysis of power propose a novel metric, called the risk graph (RG), to show the flows in a power grid [18]. That is, the extended model is less criticality of important nodes in a grid network and the hidden complex than pure power flow models. relationship among them. Using the risk graph, we develop When discussing about malicious attack strategies, we as- the riskgraph-based node attack strategy. The riskgraph-based sume that attackers might have certain information of power node attack strategy is conducted on IEEE 118 bus system and grid networks, such as topological structures, electric fea- Polish transmission system, and compared with the load-based, tures, and system tolerances. For instance, the topological the degree-based and the proposed RSS node attack strategies. structure information can be purchased from companies (e.g. The simulation results demonstrate the surprising strength of Platts [19]), the electric features, such as impedance, can be the riskgraph-based approach even if an attacker has limited estimated based on the topological information. The system knowledge of power grids. tolerances of real power systems are hard to be clearly known The paper is structured as follows. The related work is by attackers due to various reasons [7]–[9]. Thus, the attack presented in Section II. In Section III we set up the cascading strategies in prior studies can be divided into two categories: failure simulator under the extended model. In Section IV we unknown system tolerance, e.g. degree, load, RIF and LVD, describe the reduced search space node attack strategy, risk and known system tolerance, e.g. PoF and the exhaustive graph, and the riskgraph-based node attack strategy in detail. search approach. The more information attackers know about In Section V, the details of simulation and observation are power grids, the stronger attacks they might find. made. Finally, discussions and conclusions are provided in Section VI.