IEMI Test on a Complex Smart Grid Communication System (PETER)

The project Acronym is PETER (Pan- European Training, Research Education Network on Electromagnetic Risk Management) funded by the Marie- Sklodowska- Curie Actions (MSCA) within the Horizon 2020 program of the European Commission. The main objective of PETER project is to train 15 Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) on topics related to the development of high technology systems that maintain their reliability and safety throughout their life cycle, despite these systems being exposed to severe and complex Electromagnetic Interfere (EMI) threats.

Currently, the problem of EMI is addressed with a "rules-based" approach. This means that during the design phase for an electronic device, several directives/norms are prescribed, resulting in the standard application of several mitigation techniques (filtering, shielding, cable routing, etc.). But as the examples above show, such an approach suffers from some serious shortcom ings when it comes to modern high-tech systems and highly critical applications such as medi cal systems and smart grid complex systems. Because critical system safety is crucial and addressing the EMI issues requires evaluating failure probabilities that should be overlooked, rule-based approaches give a false sense of security when system reliability needs to be considered. Therefore, to ensure that people’s safety is not compromised in this way, the PETER consortium has initiated a novel and much more ro bust "risk-based" approach to EMI management.

Both ESR 2 and ESR 15 are working closely together towards to give theoretical description of risk assessment methodologies, carrying out experimental analysis and model verification and work on risk management of the Smart Grid network of systems when Intentional Elec tromagnetic Interference (IEMI) attacks or threats cause disruptions to the system. The com plex smart grid system includes the communication subsystem and application subsystems. Each ESR focuses on one of the subsystems according to the requirements defined by its as signed Work Package (WP) 1 for ESR 2, which focuses on the communication system, and WP 4 for ESR 15, which focuses on case studies considering the application subsystem. The main objective of ESR 2 for the laboratory access period is to assess the vulnerability of communications between the subsystems of a complex smart grid system to low-level radiated EMI signals.

The proposal reference number is 125, prepared by User Group (UG) leader ESR 2, Arash Nateghi, from Defence Research Institute for Protection Technologies– ABC Protection (WIS) in collaboration with ESR15, Fernando Arduini from Fraunhofer Institute for Technological Trend Analysis (INT) both based in Germany. The laboratory access provided by Research Director Knut Samdal from SINTEF Energi AS, part of the Norwegian National Smart Grid Laboratory (NSGL) in O.S. Bragstads Plass 2a, Gløshaugen, Trondheim, Norway. The EriGrid2 project support team members are Merkebu Zenebe Degefa, Santiago Sanchez Acevedo and Kjell Ljøkelsøy. The start and end dates of ESRs participation are as follows: ESR2 from 04/19/2022 to 05/19/2022 and ESR15 from 06/09/2022 to 07/12/2022.