MT/BT: Active Defense and Cyber Resilience Maneuvering for Virtual Power Plants

The increasing integration of renewable energies and other decentralized energy resources (DER) into the power grid is leading to a growing number of Virtual Power Plants (VPP). These VPPs consist each of networks of decentralized power generation units, flexible power consumers, and storage systems that are aggregated and managed as a single entity to supply power to the grid or specific consumers. In this setting, utilities and VPP operators relies on wide-area communication networks to remotely control a variety of DER such as renewable energy plants and even battery storage systems and inverter-coupled devices including electric vehicles and heat pumps, or to interface or coordinate with each other. Cyber-resilience primary adversary is the Advanced Persistent Threat (APT), and one of the cornerstones of cyber-resilience engineering is the acceptance of the assumption that the adversary has infiltrated the system and achieved a persistent presence within it. The conceptual objective is to assure its mission despite the adverse conditions that the APT may cause to the system. Deception technology and adversary engagement are included in the constructs of NIST SP 800-160v2r1, however their practical implementation in decentralized Cyber-physical Systems, such as the VPP, is mostly unknown, especially due to the complexity (i.e., our ability to predict the behavior of the system against a set of conditions) of critical infrastructure systems, and their operation at the edge of chaos.

Furthermore, with the average life span of VPP components ranging in at least 10 years, the current and expected computational capabilities of components, sub-systems, or the VPP as a whole, is limited, making integration of deception technology challenging. However, the strategic asymmetric advantage that deception technology provides may supersede the potential trade-offs; a notion that is put to the question through this thesis research proposal.

We are looking for motivated students who are interested in a challenging master's thesis in the field of cyber resilience of Virtual Power Plants (VPP). This work focuses on the development and evaluation of deception technology, specifically tailored to the needs of a VPP.