Cyber-Physical Microgrids: Toward Future Resilient Communities

Abstract

Research in monitoring and control of microgrids has been ongoing for the last two decades to protect and enhance communities' socio-economic performance. However, of increasing concern are the possible cyber-physical threats that could disrupt the provision of macrogrids' energy services to critical infrastructure and consequently impact the resilience and sustainability of communities. As cyber-physical systems, microgrids are not immune to these threats. Advanced monitoring and control are critical for real-time operations of microgrids and, therefore, directly influence communities' resilience. Research trends in monitoring have recently shifted from normal situational awareness in forecasting, state estimation, and prediction to anomalies' analysis and cyber-physical attacks' detection to support resilient control systems. In addition, confounding the interpretation of research findings is the lack of a widely accepted definition, analytical methods, and metrics to consistently describe the resilience of power grids, especially for microgrids. This paper provides an overview of current research in microgrid resilience and presents an outlook for future trends.