Sandia Labs FY22 Laboratory Directed Research & Development Annual Report

FY22 ANNUAL REPORT

DEFENSIVE, WIDE-AREA SPECIAL PROTECTION SCHEME PRESERVES ELECTRIC GRID OPERATION BY PROCESSING CYBER-PHYSICAL DATA.

To meet the needs of future special protection schemes (SPS), Sandia and a research team at Sandia’s Alliance partner Texas A&M University, proposed a defensive, wide-area SPS that learns system conditions, mitigates cyber physical consequences, and preserves electric grid operation under diverse disturbances. The Harmonized Automatic Relay Mitigation of Nefarious Intentional Events (HARMONIE) SPS processes cyber and physical data from relay and out-of-band measurements and learns actual system conditions using transformer-based and graph convolution neural networks to adapt to both predictable and unpredictable disturbances.

Additionally, it deploys proactive response actions to prevent cascading impact. Through several real-time, cyber-physical emulation disturbance experiments, HARMONIE-SPS demonstrated how processing cyber-physical data for assessing system conditions and informing response provides more comprehensive, effective protection of the electric grid. Six publications on the impacts of this research, achieved in part through collaboration with the Public Service Company of New Mexico, include one presented at the

2021 Resilience Week Conference. (PI: Shamina Hossain-McKenzie)

HARMONIE-SPS defends the electric grid by processing cyber-physical data, classifying system conditions, and informing response.

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