Battelle’s Jason Black Outlines Best Practices for Grid Security

Jason Black, research lead of Battelle’s energy systems business, has urged utilities to go beyond the minimum grid security requirements outlined by North American Electric Reliability Corp. in a piece for Intelligent Utility published Thursday.

He says utilities must factor in all potential risks such as equipment failure, weather-related disaster and man-made threats when developing a complete physical security plan.

Each utility also needs to look at the whole grid system in order to identify system vulnerabilities by region, Black said.

“The NERC physical security standards require that each utility identify critical assets, perform vulnerability assessments for those assets, and develop plans for securing critical assets from physical attacks,” he added.

“But today’s highly interconnected grid requires a more comprehensive regional approach to risk assessments,” he said.

Black recommended that utilities plan for disaster recovery and prevention and keep data about critical assets and recovery plans secure.