How emerging trends affect grid security

Advanced metering infrastructure

AMI takes all of the basic components of the increasingly digitized T&D infrastructure – advanced sensors, two-way communication, controls – and gives the customer direct access to and the ability to interact with grid technologies and networks. Customers will increasingly use smart meters, home energy controllers, microgrids, and customer-facing web applications in order to monitor, manage, control, produce, and even sell power. The risk is clear: Utilities no longer control within a defined security perimeter the technologies that directly interface to and integrate with broader systems. This introduces new vulnerabilities and the potential for new types of attack, from “man in the middle” network attacks and energy theft to denial of service at the meter.