Risk‐Management and Risk‐Analysis‐Based Decision Tools for Attacks on Electric Power

Abstract

Incident data about disruptions to the electric power grid provide useful information that can be used as inputs into risk management policies in the energy sector for disruptions from a variety of origins, including terrorist attacks. This article uses data from the Disturbance Analysis Working Group (DAWG) database, which is maintained by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), to look at incidents over time in the United States and Canada for the period 1990-2004. Negative binomial regression, logistic regression, and weighted least squares regression are used to gain a better understanding of how these disturbances varied over time and by season during this period, and to analyze how characteristics such as number of customers lost and outage duration are related to different characteristics of the outages. The results of the models can be used as inputs to construct various scenarios to estimate potential outcomes of electric power outages, encompassing the risks, consequences, and costs of such outages.

Understanding Bulk Power Reliability: The Importance of Good Data and a Critical Review of Existing Sources

“…[8] shows NERC data (1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000) in cumulative probability of transmission and generation-related failures as motivation for their paper, encouraging focus on continuation of services in a blackout rather than only aiming to reduce or eliminate blackouts. [9] constructs time series-based statistical analysis with NERC data from 1990-2004 as input to risk management policies. The authors regress against time and customers to identify what factors affect the length of an interruption and how many customers are affected.…”

“…Also, and more importantly, if the rate of reporting has increased (because of policy or other changes), a seeming increase in interruptions over time may be the result of improved reporting, not degrading reliability. Several papers conclude that the frequency of interruptions has increased over time, between the mid 1980s and early 1990s to the 2000's [4][5][6][7][8][9]. In these papers, the authors point to the increase in blackout frequency in the NERC System Disturbances Reports, without questioning whether this dataset is complete.…”

“…For instance, [9] observes that the median customer loss for U.S. and Canadian interruptions between 1990 and 2004 were, respectively, 67,765 and one. This vast difference could in part be explained by the different populations in the countries, but most likely there is under-reporting of events as well.…”

“…This reporting could be similar to or perhaps a part of NERC new Event Analysis initiative. 9 Another possible way to develop a statisticallyvalid reliability dataset would be to require SAIDI and SAIFI reporting from all utilities or other service providers that serve end-use customers. Reliability metrics that measure customer interruptions can be satisfactorily calculated with data from these entities alone, since the focus here is on reliability events that result ultimately in interruptions of power to end-use customers.…”

North American Blackout Time Series Statistics and Implications for Blackout Risk

“…Starting in January 2000 [1], analyses or presentations of portions of the NERC data set have been published by several research groups [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15]. All these research groups report a heavy tail in the distribution of blackout size.…”