Ester Ciancamerla’s research while affiliated with ENEA and other places

Modernised urban networks will constitute the backbone of smart cities. Modernisation of urban networks is far from being realised and an extensive use of comprehension, and of models at adequate level of granularity, is needed. The paper proposes a cross-domain methodology to represent and evaluate energy efficiency of interdependent urban smart grid, gas and water networks. Models use domain simulators to faithfully represent each physical network, and transversal simulators to represent the three interdependent physical networks, their interdependencies and to compute energy efficiency indicators. Models built by domain simulators are also used to validate models built by transversal simulators. An actual smart grid connected to photovoltaic plants of different power and location is modelled and its efficiency indicators are analysed and discussed. The grid model will be then interconnected with basic gas and water network models to investigate the impact of their interdependencies on energy efficiency indicators.

The present paper deals with the topic of the planning of distribution networks, equipped with Dispersed Generation (DG), and so active grids. Different issues related of this topic are widely present in the scientific literature of the last years, due to the big spread of renewable energy sources (RES), typically in small generation power plants connected to the Medium Voltage (MV) and Low Voltage (LV) systems. The research team, authoring this paper, has been involved in a National Project, named SINERGREEN (Smart INtelligent EneRgy GREEN) dealing with the topic of the smart grids and energy efficiency. In the framework of the project, the researchers have developed a simulation tool, dedicated to the electrical grids, able to calculate some energy performance indicators, that can be used for evaluating operation of the network and so for addressing the decisions of a Distribution System Operator (DSO) in terms of planning and development of its grids for a better integration of RES power plants in DG. In the present paper the tool is presented, the main Indicators are reported and the results of the application of the methodology implemented to a case study are reported.

There is an increasing concern over the cyber security of Critical Infrastructures (CI) due to the increasing ability of cyber attackers to cause even catastrophic failures. It is mainly due to the pervasiveness of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) and to the consequent de isolation of SCADA (Supervision, Control and Data Acquisition) system, which represents the nervous system of most CIs. Cyber attacks could block the connection between SCADA Control Centre and its remote devices or insert fake commands and/or measurements in the equipment communications. With reference to an actual case study, constituted by a SCADA system controlling a portion of a medium voltage electrical grid and a corporate network, we investigate the use of modeling versus a hybrid test bed to conduct actual cyber attacks on SCADA and to analyze their consequences on SCADA and on the electrical grid. Modeling is in charge of predicting consequences of cyber attacks on SCADA and the electrical grid, while the test bed is in charge to reproduce cyber attacks and their propagation more realistically then modeling. The hybrid test bed is constituted by the coexistence of actual and simulated systems and devices of SCADA, corporate network and the electrical grid. The final hybrid test bed will include the most adequate models essentially to reproduce missing components such as the electrical grid and parts of corporate network and SCADA system.

We propose a cross-domain methodology to model and evaluate efficiency indicators of a Medium Voltage/Low Voltage (MV/LV) smart grid and its SCADA, interdependent, at physical layer and ICT layer, with water and gas urban networks. Models account the interdependency among the networks, a) adding, when possible, to the main sources of each network, sources belonging to the other networks; b) looking at the active components of water and gas networks energized by the electrical grid and c) considering ICT, which represents a common means, supporting and interconnecting SCADA devices of all the networks. Models use domain simulators to faithfully represent each physical network, and transversal simulators, to represent together the three interdependent physical networks and their SCADA systems. Models built by domain simulators are used to validate models built by transversal simulators. Efficiency indicators, and particularly, the Quality of Service of each network, are predicted along planning and operation scenarios.

Critical infrastructures, such as electrical grids, are monitored and controlled by SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) systems. Cyber attacks against SCADA might put CI and in turn industrial production, environment integrity and human safety at risk. Here, with reference to an actual case study, constituted by an electrical grid, its SCADA system and a corporate network, we discuss how cyber threats, vulnerabilities and attacks might degrade the functionalities of SCADA and corporate network and, in turn, lead to outages of the electrical grid. We represent SCADA and corporate network under malware propagation, Denial of Service and Man In The Middle attacks, and predict their consequent functionalities. Particularly, we use Netlogo to identify possible malware propagation in relation to SCADA & corporate security policies adopted from the utility and NS2 simulator to compute the consequences of such cyber attacks on SCADA and in turn on electrical grid functionalities.

There is an increasing concern over the cyber security of Critical Infrastructures (CI) due to the increasing ability of cyber attackers to cause even catastrophic failures. It is mainly due to the pervasiveness of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) and to the consequent de isolation of SCADA (Supervision, Control and Data Acquisition) system, which represents the nervous system of most CIs. Cyber attacks could block the connection between SCADA Control Centre and its remote devices or insert fake commands/ measurements in the equipment communications. With reference to an actual case study, constituted by a SCADA system controlling a portion of a medium voltage power grid and a corporate network, we discuss how cyber threats, vulnerabilities and attacks might degrade the functionalities of SCADA and corporate network, which, in turn, might lead to outages of the electrical grid. We represent SCADA and corporate network under malware propagation, Denial of Service and Man In The Middle attacks and predict their consequent performance degradation. Particularly, we use NetLogo to identify possible malware propagation in relation to SCADA & corporate security policies adopted from the utility and NS2 simulator to compute the consequences of the attacks on SCADA and in turn on power grid.

The role of network reliability in the analysis of Critical Infrastructures (CI) is investigated showing that the traditional approach must be extended in two directions: to include the packet propagation time along the links for real time analysis, and to include networks in which many sources may be variously connected to many sinks. A case study of a SCADA system controlling a power grid, originated from the EU Project MICIE (MICIE — Tool for systemic risk analysis and secure mediation of data exchanged across linked CI information infrastructures) [6], is examined in details, by considering the system in normal operation and when perturbed by malicious attacks. The paper describes an analytical model that can provide timely and accurate information about the reliability status of the system, and that can rapidly be adapted to the changing configurations of the interacting networks. The aim of this work is to explore the feasibility of providing the human operators with a reliability monitor that assists them in checking the status of the system.

Traditional reliability studies on probabilistic net- works are devoted to evaluate the probability that two nodes or K nodes are connected, assuming that nodes are undifferentiated. In flow networks, however, we need to distinguish between source nodes where the flow is generated and sink nodes where the flow is utilized. Sink nodes may usually be fed by many sources. To this end, we have extended the traditional studies to include multi- source multi-sink networks. A case study is analysed consisting in a portion of an electrical grid controlled by a its SCADA system through a public telecommunication network.