An Examination of the Cybersecurity Issue with Distributed Energy Resources in Smart Cities

The expansion of data in Internet-related applications has increased the incidence of cyber security. Cyberattacks have also targeted the smart city component of energy management. Additionally, the primary physical smart grid of a smart city, which is operated by DERs that rely on several controllers, is highly vulnerable to hacking. Due to the rising number of devices owned and managed by customers and other parties, this reliance on digital communication and administration is partly to blame for the rise in cyberattacks on DER systems. The main privacy and cyber security issues that potentially harm, damage, or undermine DER and related systems in smart cities are examined in this study. These issues underscore the need for the DER sector to focus on the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, artificial intelligence, and smart grid—the four pillars of a smart city—as well as their security and privacy. It has been found that the distributed structure, stakeholder identification and classification, use of the proper model, and incorporation of fault-tolerance techniques may all be used to address the security and privacy concerns in smart cities. In order to ensure that the integration of DER is done without jeopardizing the stability and dependability of the grid, this study offers a comprehensive attack-resilient architecture to safeguard the integrated DER and the key power grid infrastructure against harmful cyberattacks. Along with a detailed analysis of the cybersecurity challenges specifically brought up by DER integration, a cyber-physical power system with a high DER penetration is designed and discussed in detail. The authors then provide a rigorous approach for analyzing DER resilience, provide an overview of the key ways DER has been attacked, and create useful resilience measures and design principles.