Understanding the Impacts of Data Integrity Attacks in the Context of Transactive Control Systems

The rapid growth of internet-connected smart devices capable of exchanging energy price information and adaptively controlling the consumption of connected loads, has paved the way for transactive control to make inroads in the modern grid. Transactive control frameworks integrate the wholesale and retail energy markets, and enable active participation of end users, thereby playing a key role in managing the rising number of distributed assets.However, the use of internet for the communication of data among the building, distribution,and transmission levels makes the system susceptible to external intrusions. A skilled adversary can potentially manipulate the exchanged data with the intention to inflict damage to the system or increase financial gains. In this thesis, the effect of such data integrity attacks on information exchanged between the distribution systems operator and end-users is investigated. Impact on grid operations is evaluated using different categories like operational, financial, user comfort and reliability parameters. It is shown that attack impact depends on a number of factors like attack duration, time of attack, penetration rate etc besides the attack magnitude. The effect of an attack continues to persist for some time after its removal and hence effective detection and mitigation strategies will be required to ensure system resilience and robustness.