A Proposal for a Workshop on Designing Cyber for Future Energy Systems. To be Held in Washington DC, November 19-20, 2008

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract It is the objective of the two-day workshop to define a vision for future energy systems and to identify the key role of cyber technologies in shaping their performance. THE INTELLECTUAL MERIT OF THIS PROPOSAL This workshop is challenged with an agenda of conceptualizing frameworks to solving the design, planning and operating problems that plague electric power systems. The result is an infrastructure that functions both reliably and efficiently. The same frameworks would be useful for protecting electric power systems under malicious attacks, i.e., making them secure. The workshop must reflect a natural progression of the current ongoing research and the joint vision arrived by the workshop participants. Such novel frameworks require: (1) modeling of an electric power system as a single technical, economic and policy dynamic process, (2) advances in control engineering and systems theory to analyze the interdependencies of interest and to design near optimal feedback from the technical, economic and policy signals, in which optimality is measured in terms of efficiency and reliability, and (3) IT-based implementations of control algorithms operating on technical, economic and policy feedback to highly distributed and flexible sensors and actuators. The envisioned approaches must consider human decision makers as part of the system. The challenge is to conceptualize how generalized systems theory, combined with IT and the specific modeling of critical infrastructures has the potential to become a backbone of a flexible robust electric power system. BROADER IMPACT OF THE PROPOSED ACTIVITY The results of this workshop will be organized and made available as a Special Report to be used by academia, industry and government for pursuing future work in enabling today's electric power grids with cyber. As a result, both educational and research efforts will be more aligned with the future needs. In particular, the material will be made available to universities which are engaged in preparing future leaders in the area of electric energy systems. The educational needs will be discussed as a means toward implementing the vision put forward. The expectation is that the workshop material would form the basis for badly needed technology transfer, in particular the deployment of cyber technologies into next generation electric power systems. The over-riding concept expected to emerge is that cyber technologies are essential for implementing tradeoff solutions with regard to cost, environmental impact and security.