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What is the greatest threat to the United States power grid over the next…
What is the greatest threat to the United States power grid over the next year?
Cyber attacks
Rye, NY (August 2013) by IRAN
Level of Damage - Stolen files, architecture diagrams, and credentials
Methods used - Cellular Modem
Link
Ukraine (December 2015)
Link
Summary: Attack lasted >6 hours. Multifaceted approach was used to attack,including: spear-phishing emails, malware, SCADA control, hardware and data destruction, and a denial-of-service.
Israel (January 2016)
Computer virus
Link
Severe Weather/Natural disasters
Hurricanes
Examples
Hurricane Katrina (August 2005)
US Dept of Energy Report detailing outages and length of time
Summary: Storm hit Aug. 23. By August 30, 2.6 million people were still out of power
Hurricane Sandy (October 2012)
DOE: Hurricane Sandy and Energy Infrastructure
Summary: Within 24 hours of landfall 8 million customers lost power
Hurricane Matthew (September to October 2016)
US Dept of Energy Report detailing outages and length of time
Summary: 43,000 people without power 4 days after storm hit. Breaks down outages by state.
Hurricanes have hit across the States (not necessarily a regional threat) :!!:
Link for
power outages
related to Weather events
Snow Storms
Examples
Massachusetts and Connecticut (October 2011)
Summary: Over 800,000 homes and businesses lost power. Resulted in 11 deaths
Freak nor'easter storm blamed for 11 deaths
North American Ice Storm (December 2013)
Link
Summary
Feb 2013 Nor'easter
Link
Summary
Percentage of the country that experiences Snow Storms? :!!:
Thunderstorm/Windstorm
Examples
2006 Windstorm Seattle
1.5 Million Power Outages
Link
Western New York (August 2009)
Link
Summary: 21,000 power outages. Severe thunderstorm that produced heavy lightning, intense rains, strong winds and flash flooding
Thunderstorms are generally a nationally occurring event :!!:
Economic Benefits of Increasing Electric Grid Resilience to Weather Outages
Human Error
Examples
Yuma, AZ (September 2011)
Summary: 5 million in Southwest U.S. lost power for 12 hours. Worker didn't properly fix equipment which blew out major circuits controlling SW US
Link
San Diego Shutoff (April 2010)
"County’s biggest power plant running at the time was intentionally shut down."
Summary: 20% of customers in the area of Arizona, California, and parts of Mexico lost power for 45 minutes (250,000) @ midnight. Shutdown due to not following regulations