CRS Insight - Electric Grid Physical Security: Recent Legislation (US)

(Another Hat Tip to our friends at the Federation of American Scientists for posting this CRS document!)

Last week a two-page summary of recent US government legislation focused on electric grid physical security was prepared by Paul W. Parfomak of the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

http://fas.us8.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33c6e6fc9f63792ebcbb7ef9d&id=9c0cfe0fff&e=d0dc8ca93c

The document is a quick read. Besides summarizing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)) / North American Electric Reliability corporation (NERC) efforts on the CIP-014, Physical Security Reliability Standard, the document summarizes some interesting electric grid physical security elements in the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act - P.L. 114-94 and the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015 - S. 2012.

Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act - P.L. 114-94

• Became law on December 4, 2015
  
• Contains provisions in two sections to facilitate recovery during electric grid emergencies due to physical damage and other causes.
  
• Critical Electric Infrastructure Security (§1104) -- This section provides the Secretary of Energy additional authority to order emergency measures to protect or restore the reliability of critical electric infrastructure or defense critical electric infrastructure during a grid security emergency.  The identification of such a grid emergency would be made by written notice from the President with a concurrent notification from Congress.  This section also allows a) grid owners to recover prudent costs incurred under such emergency measures through rates regulated by FERC, and b) increases protection of critical electrical infrastructure information.
  
• Strategic Transformer Reserve (§1105) -- This section requires the Secretary of Energy -- in consultation with other agencies, the military, and the utility industry -- to submit to Congress within one year a plan for a Strategic Transformer Reserve.

Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015 - S. 2012

• Includes two sections primarily directed at electric grid cybersecurity but with potential impacts on physical asset protection or recovery.
  
• Cybersecurity Threats (§2001) -- Would provide the Secretary of Energy additional authority to order emergency measures to avert or mitigate a cybersecurity threat upon receiving notice from the President that such a threat exists.  This section is also intended to increase protection of critical electrical infrastructure information.
  
• Cybersecurity Threats (§2002) -- This section would designate the Department of Energy (DOE) as the lead Sector-Specific Agency under Presidential Policy Directive 21 for energy sector cybersecurity.  This bill would require a) DOE to develop a program for modeling and assessing energy infrastructure risks in the face of natural and human-made (physical and cyber) threats, b) DOE to explore alternative structures and funding mechanisms to expand industry participation in the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center (E-ISAC).

Thanks again to Mr. Parfomak for this CRS Insight.

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Insurance and a US Electric Grid Blackout - A Compelling Read

On July 8, 2015, Lloyd's of London published an excellent report Business Blackout - The insurance implications of a cyber attack on the US power grid.  

(The same day as the United Airlines, Wall Street Journal and New York Stock Exchange cyber events...hmmm, any coincidence?)

This 65-page report is an excellent analysis of the insurance and economic impact on the US following a theoretical cyber attack on the US Northeastern corridor affecting Boston to Washington, DC.  The report is a compelling read for anyone in the cyber security or critical infrastructure domains -- at a minimum the analysis by Lloyd's and the Cambridge Center for Risk Studies Team (University of Cambridge Judge Business School) causes you to take pause to a) better understand the interdependency of infrastructures and b) better learn ways to consider economic impacts of such events.

Key sections of the report include:

• Executive Summary
• Introduction to the Scenario
• The Erebos Cyber Blackout Scenario
• Direct Impacts to the Economy**
• Macroeconomic Analysis**
• Cyber as an Emerging Insurance Risk**
• Insurance Industry Loss Estimation
• Annex A:  Cyber Attacks Against Industrial Control Systems since 1999
• Annex B:  The US Electricity Grid and Cyber Risk to Critical Infrastructure
• Annex C:  Constructing the Scenario - Threats and Vulnerabilities

** = Focus your reading here...

For some key "bullets" on the report and the scenario, the following were extracted from the Lloyd's web page:

1. The attackers are able to inflict physical damage on 50 electric generators which supply electrical power in the Northeastern USA, including New York City and Washington, DC.
2. While the attack is relatively limited in scope (nearly 700 generators supply electricity across the region) it triggers wider blackouts which leaves 93 million people without power.
3. The total impact to the US economy is estimated at $243B, rising to more than $1T in the most extreme version of the scenario.
4. Insurance claims arise in over 30 lines of insurance.  The total insured losses are estimated at $21.4B, rising to $71.1B in the most extreme version of the scenario.
5. A key requirement for an insurance response to cyber risks will be to enhance the quality of data available and to continue the development of probabilistic modelling.
6. The sharing of cyber attack data is a complex issue, but could be an important element for enabling the insurance solutions required for this key emerging risk.

Hat tip to Eireann Leverett, Senior Risk Researcher and member of the ENISA ICS Security Stakeholders Group for passing along this analysis.

CONCLUSION

If you are involved with critical infrastructure -- especially the electric grid -- take time to read this report cover-to-cover.  If you are worried about the economic impacts of cyber on your business -- read this report to understand the interdependencies.

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Energy Infrastructure - Major Changes Needed

Today the Obama Administration released a "first-ever" Quadrennial Energy Review.  This report is the result of President Obama's order on January 9, 2014 for the performance of this examination of the country's energy infrastructure.  The President's initiative was based on the President's Climate Action Plan and in response to a 2010 recommendation by the President's Councils of Advisers on Science and Technology.  A White House Task Force comprising 22 Federal agencies were assigned to develop the QER.

This particular release is supported by some excellent commentary and documents at the following sites:

• Washington Post Article by Chris Mooney (Link)
• Department of Energy Quadrennial Energy Review Web Page (Link)
• Quadrennial Energy Review Fact Sheet (10 Pages) (Link)

The actual report is 348 pages long and the chapter organization is:

The report included the following segments of energy infrastructure for this analysis:

As with most reviews of our country's energy infrastructure the statistics are daunting.

Some noted include:

• 2.6M miles of interstate and intrastate pipelines
• 640,000 miles of electric transmission lines
• 414 natural gas facilities
• 330 ports handling crude and refined petroleum products
• 140,000+ miles of railways handling crude petroleum

And, of course, as observed in numerous other reports (such as the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Report Card) "...there has been a lack of timely investment in refurbishing, replacing, and modernizing components of infrastructure that are simply old or obsolete."

Some of the key findings highlighted on Page 25 of the report include:

• Mitigating energy disruptions is fundamental to infrastructure resilience.
• Transmission, Storage and Distribution (TS&D) infrastructure is vulnerable to many natural phenomena.
• Threats and vulnerabilities vary substantially by region.
• Recovery from natural gas and liquid fuel system disruptions can be difficult.
• Cyber incidents and physical attacks are growing concerns.
• High-voltage transformers are critical to the grid..
• Assessment tools and frameworks need to be improved..
• Shifts in the natural gas sector are having mixed effects on resilience, reliability, safety, and asset security.
• Dependencies and interdependencies are growing.
• Aging, leak-prone natural gas distribution pipelines and associated infrastructures prompt safety and environmental concerns.

Finally, one of the graphics in this report was fascinating.  It included a chart showing the "...billion dollar disaster event types by year..."  Not a purely energy-centric issue but certainly a demonstration of the challenges faced by energy infrastructure.

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   If If you are an "infrastructure junkie" like me, this is a terrific report to digest and for our country's energy leadership to act upon.

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ENISA - Identifying Critical Information Infrastructure (CII)

The European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) has published a new and interesting document entitled Methodologies for the Identification of Critical Information Infrastructure Assets and Services.  The report documents a study performed by ENISA staff to tackle the problem of identification of Critical Information Infrastructures (aka CII) in communications networks.  However, because of the broad scope of the critical infrastructure inspected for this report, there are ideas herein to help countries and large enterprises identify their critical assets.

The study of 23 Member States did reveal that a "...significant number of Member States present a low level of maturity and lack a structured approach regarding identification of Critical Information Infrastructure..." However, this report does offer an overview of methodologies in the identification of CII assets and services which may be useful to other geographic regions, nation states and even large multi-national corporations.  Some key aspects of the methodologies are summarized below.

Identification of Critical Sectors

One of the first steps listed in Section 4.3 is the identification of critical sectors.  On pages 22-24 the report identifies 14 critical sectors including critical subsectors and critical services to be considered when identifying critical assets.  The table showing this useful list is below:

Identification of Critical Services

Section 5.2 offers a suggested process of using criticality criteria in order to identify critical assets.  The report notes that criticality is the (1) level of contribution of an infrastructure to society in maintaining a minimum level of national and international law and order, public safety, economy, public health and environment, or (2) impact level to citizens or to the government from the loss or disruption of the infrastructure.

Again, ENISA offers a table (below) showing eight different criteria with an explanation:

Assessment of Dependencies

The next step in this process is to examine critical infrastructure (system) for the following types of dependencies:

• Interdependencies within a critical sector (intra-sector)
• Interdependencies between critical sectors (cross-sector), and, especially for CII
• Interdependencies among communication network assets (both physical and logical connectivity)

Conclusion

In the United States we have some guidance when identifying critical infrastructure for the electric grid -- this guidance is mainly in the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) standards.  Even the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has identified a list of critical national sectors. However, the ENISA document would be an excellent resource for a large regional organization or nation state or even large, transnational corporation to identify the critical sectors of concern and the critical assets to be protected.

My compliments to ENISA for this document and the guidelines offered.

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Water, Electric Generation and Climate Change

Note:  The following is a paper I've prepared for my Masters in Infrastructure Planning and Management at the University of Washington, Seattle.  I think you may find this interesting in light of today's concerns about water for thermal power plants.

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Background

I have been associated with electricity generation in one form or other as part of my profession since 1974.  I have operated nuclear power plants and been associated with hydroelectric generation, combustion turbine generation, coal-fired generation and even wind/solar and distributed generation such as diesel generators.  During this time I've learned that water is a very critical and foundational service for the thermal plants in particular.  Unfortunately as time progresses we are witnessing more issues relative to reduced availability and quantity of water for these plants.  Additionally there are challenges with climate change causing the water temperatures to rise and thus make it more difficult to efficiently generate power at some nuclear and coal-fired plants.

Key Aspects of Water and Electricity Generation

As noted above the key aspects of water supply and thermal energy generation is the quantity used and the maximum temperature permitted for plant operation. In the table below, you can see that water use for thermal/non-hydro generation can be substantial:

http://www.westernresourceadvocates.org/water/waterenergy.php

Not only is a substantial quantity of water required for electricity generation but you should also consider that the discharge from the plant could contribute to increasing the temperature of the regional water supply which has impacts on fisheries, algae blooms, etc.

For some added statistics, the amount of water the nation's 19,000 power generating units consume is approximately 100 billion gallons a day -- three times what cascades over Niagara Falls in the same time frame. (Spiegel 2012)

http://www.ctmirror.org/story/2012/09/19/millstone-shutdown-sign-broader-power-problem-caused-climate-change

Case Examples

Some case examples where water quantity/volume and temperature have played key roles in the ability of the plants to generate or not are as follows:

Millstone Nuclear Plant, Connecticut, 2012

In August 2012 the Millstone Nuclear Power Station near New London, Connecticut, was shut down for 12 days because the seawater used to cool the plant’s Unit 2 generating plant became too warm.  It was the first time any US nuclear plant was shut down because of intake water thermal limits.  The source of the cooling water is Long Island Sound. Of note and since 1975 when the plant started up, plant scientists have noted that Long Island Sound’s temperature rise about 0.7 degrees F a decade for about 2.8 degrees total.  This increase is attributed to ocean temperature rise due to climate change. (Spiegel 2012)

Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, Alabama, 2011

The Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Alabama had to shut down more than once the summer of 2011 because the Tennessee River's water was too warm to use it for cooling. (Koch 2012)

North Texas Power Plant, 2011

One North Texas power plant (name unknown) had to reduce its generation output because the water level in its cooling reservoir had fallen substantially. (Fowler 2011)

Corette Power Plant, Montana, 2001

The 160-megawatt Corette Power Plant, located along the Yellowstone River in Billings, Montana, depends on a once-through cooling system, diverting 54-million gallons of water from the Yellowstone River each day. The plant’s water intake pumps work only if the river flow stays above 1,500 cubic feet per second. In recent years, this threshold was not met for several days at a time, forcing the plant to shut down.   In this case water flow rates affect the ability of the plant to operate or not. (Clean Air Task Force 2003)

Some Conclusions

According to a study commissioned by the European Commission and entitled “Vulnerability of US and European Electricity Supply to Climate Change,” projects that the next 50 years of warmer water and lower water flows will lead to more power generation disruptions.  The authors project that thermoelectric power generating capacity from 2031 to 2060 will drop by 4 and 16 percent in the US and 6 and 19 percent in Europe due to lack of cooling water.  They also go on to note that the likelihood of extreme drops in power generation – complete or total shutdowns – is projected to almost triple. (van Vliet, et al. 2012)

This report goes on to note that reduced water availability and warmer water – caused by increasing air temperature associated with climate change – will result in higher electricity costs and reduced reliability.  Those plants that rely on once-through cooing are the most vulnerable versus those that recycle their cooing water via cooling towers.

Discharging water at elevated temperatures causes yet another problem: downstream thermal pollution which can affect life cycles of affected aquatic flora and fauna.  Also, this higher temperature could be an added impact on downstream power generation using the same water for cooling.

Overall, this appears to be a very interesting area to pursue further research and review of the current issues with water, electricity generation and climate change.

Bibliography

Clean Air Task Force. "The Last Straw: Water Use by Power Plants in the Arid West." The Last Straw: Water Use by Power Plants in the Arid West. April 2003. http://www.westernresourceadvocates.org/media/pdf/laststraw2009.pdf (accessed January 12, 2014).

Fowler, Tom. More power plant woes likely if Texas drought drags into winter. August 24, 2011. http://fuelfix.com/blog/2011/08/24/more-power-plant-woes-likely-if-texas-drought-drags-into-winter/ (accessed January 12, 2014).

Hickey, Hanna. Nuclear and coal-fired electrical plants vulnerable to climate change. June 3, 2012. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-06/uow-nac053112.php (accessed January 12, 2014).

Koch, Wendy. Climate change causes nuclear, coal plant shutdowns. June 5, 2012. http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2012/06/climate-change-makes-nuclear-coal-power-plants-vulnerable/1#.UtLevfRDua8 (accessed January 12, 2014).

Spiegel, Jan Ellen. Millstone shutdown is a sign of broader power problem caused by climate change. September 24, 2012. http://www.ctmirror.org/story/2012/09/19/millstone-shutdown-sign-broader-power-problem-caused-climate-change (accessed January 12, 2014).

van Vliet, Michelle T. H., John R. Yearsley, Fulco Ludwig, Stefan Vögele, Dennis P. Lettenmaier, and Pavel Kabat. "Vulnerability of US and European electricity supply to climate change." Nature Climate Change (Macmillan Publishers Limited), June 2012: 1-6.

Western Resource Advocates. Water Use for Energy. n.d. http://www.westernresourceadvocates.org/water/waterenergy.php (accessed January 12, 2014).

White Paper Available - Introduction to Microgrids

As a follow-up to my presentations on Microgrid Security you may be interested in a white paper published at Securicon on Introduction to Microgrids.

You can view or download a copy of the paper HERE.

Microgrids and Security -- More News...

For the past three days I've been attending and speaking at the 3rd Military and Commercial Microgrids Summit in Del Mar, California -- just north of San Diego.  I was invited to speak on a panel entitled "The Role of Microgrids in Military and Commercial Cyber Security" as a result of my article in Jesse Berst's Smart Grid News about this subject back in May.

Overall, this was a very interesting conference organized by Infocast that included a pre-summit technology showcase reviewing microgrid technologies followed by a day and a half summit.  There were approximately eight case studies, seven panel discussions, 11 presentations and over 115 registered attendees.  The topics ranged from microgrid controls and inverters through to commercializing and financing microgrids.  The next microgrid summit is slated for the U.S. East Coast in May 2014 and I'd highly recommend you consider attending due to its content and how well this recent conference was organized.

Now regarding security of microgrids -- the conference dialogue was very refreshing.  Of note, the first three presentations by San Diego Gas & Electric, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and IPERC highlighted the need to include cyber and physical controls in the microgrid deployments.  The IPERC presentation was especially interesting from a controls security perspective in that the microgrid controller communications they have developed are intended to be secure.

The best discussion regarding efforts to overtly include cybersecurity into microgrid deployments was the session on SPIDERS -- an effort paid by the US Department of Defense and led by Sandia National Labs.  As you can see in the graphic below from Sandia Labs, the SPIDERS effort includes four phases and cybersecurity is an intended foundation for these deployments at Joint Base Hickam, Hawaii; Fort Carson, Colorado; Camp Smith, Hawaii; and future deployments.

So, the good news is that I am not the lone voice in the forest worrying about microgrid security; however, it still has a long ways to go -- in my opinion -- before the security elements are built into the microgrid designs and deployments as a standard operating process.

So, what needs to be done?  Here are some ideas:

1)  Build a cybersecurity standard for microgrids that weaves in physical, IT, and Industrial Controls/OT security elements.  Perhaps an extension of NISTIR-7628, Guidelines for Smart Grid Cybersecurity, may be a good start.

2)  Leverage the work done by Sandia Labs in their Microgrid Cyber Security Reference Architecture.

3)  Establish some training modules on microgrid security -- perhaps this could be done under sponsorship of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) or other similar organization to assure vendor neutrality.

It was obvious from the conference that we will be hearing more about microgrids in the future -- let's hope the news is about their cybersecurity resilience rather than weaknesses.

PS -- Happy Thanksgiving to my US readers!  Have a safe week!