Improve protection with a layered security approach
BY ERIC BYRES, Belden Inc.
An age-old joke in the North American power industry states that if Alexander Graham Bell walked in the room today, he would not recognize the telephone, the technology, or its business model. However, if Thomas Edison walked in, he would still understand the current state of electricity and power generation and distribution. Utility engineers have one of the hardest jobs in the world:...
A small town in North Carolina has filed a lawsuit against Duke Energy, one of the largest utility companies in the United States, alleging that the company has been deceptive in its efforts to downplay the environmental impact of its operations. The lawsuit, filed by the town of Smithfield, claims...
In 1989, the Québec grid collapsed as equipment protection relays tripped in a cascading sequence of events. Six million consumers were left without power for up to nine hours. The cause of this major outage was a geomagnetic disturbance (GMD). Geomagnetic disturbances occur during solar...
Utilize industry guidelines for modern and future technologies BY W. CHARLTON ADAMS JR., IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA), Huawei Technologies A vision is coalescing worldwide of people ubiquitously connected across smart cities, smart buildings, smart cars and, perhaps, even through sensors on...
The importance of up-to-date critical system monitoring BY MARLEE ROSEN, Rosen Associates Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) networks contain computers and applications that perform critical capabilities in delivering essential services and commodities (for example, electricity,...
Utilities are rethinking cybersecurity. The zero-trust model replaces perimeter defense with continuous verification—of every device, vendor, and data path—across the substation and supply chain. The End of Perimeter Thinking For decades, substation cybersecurity meant building walls:...
A coalition of large energy consumers and ratepayer advocates has filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), urging the agency to prohibit transmission owners from independently planning "local" transmission projects exceeding 100 kilovolts (kV). The coalition argues...
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is seeking public input on proposed "ride-through" reliability standards for inverter-based resources (IBRs), including wind, solar, and battery systems. These standards aim to ensure that IBRs can maintain operation during grid disturbances, such as...
The rapid shift toward renewable energy resources (RERs) has placed significant demands on traditional power systems. To address these challenges, modern energy infrastructure is evolving into smart grids, leveraging advanced technologies like Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) to enhance grid...
A small town in North Carolina has filed a lawsuit against Duke Energy, one of the largest utility companies in the United States, alleging that the company has been deceptive in its efforts to downplay the environmental impact of its operations. The lawsuit, filed by the town of Smithfield, claims...
In a significant move that underscores the growing demand for reliable and sustainable energy to power the expanding digital infrastructure, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has approved an interconnection agreement between Talen Energy, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Exelon. This...
