Risk analysis of critical infrastructures emphasizing electricity supply and interdependencies

Failures in critical infrastructures can cause major damage to society. Wide-area interruptions (blackouts) in the electricity supply system have severe impacts on societal critical functions and other critical infrastructures, but there is no agreed-upon framework on how to analyze and predict the reliability of electricity supply. Thus, there is a need for an approach to cross-sector risk analyses, which facilitates risk analysis of outages in the electricity supply system and enables investigation of cascading failures and consequences in other infrastructures. This paper presents such an approach, which includes contingency analysis (power flow) and reliability analysis of power systems, as well as use of a cascade diagram for investigating interdependencies. A case study was carried out together with the Emergency Preparedness Group in the city of Oslo, Norway and the network company Hafslund Nett. The case study results highlight the need for cross-sector analyses by showing that the total estimated societal costs are substantially higher when cascading effects and consequences to other infrastructures are taken into account compared to only considering the costs of electricity interruptions as seen by the network company. The approach is a promising starting point for cross-sector risk analysis of electricity supply interruptions and consequences for dependent infrastructures.

[1]  K. Samdal,et al.  Customer Costs Related to Interruptions and Voltage Problems: Methodology and Results , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems.

[2]  Yacov Y. Haimes,et al.  Managing the risk of terrorism to interdependent infrastructure systems through the dynamic inoperability input–output model , 2006 .

[3]  I. B. Utne,et al.  Critical infrastructures and risk analysis of electricity supply , 2010 .

[4]  Koen Vanthournout,et al.  Agents controlling the electric power infrastructure , 2008, Int. J. Crit. Infrastructures.

[5]  K. Uhlen,et al.  Vulnerability analysis of the Nordic power system , 2006, 2006 IEEE Power Engineering Society General Meeting.

[6]  C. T. Su,et al.  Fuzzy-Based Voltage/Reactive Power Scheduling for Voltage Security Improvement and Loss Reduction , 2001, IEEE Power Engineering Review.

[7]  Oddbjorn Gjerde,et al.  Risk and vulnerability analysis of power systems including extraordinary events , 2011, 2011 IEEE Trondheim PowerTech.

[8]  Eric R. Ziegel,et al.  System Reliability Theory: Models, Statistical Methods, and Applications , 2004, Technometrics.

[9]  S. Olsson,et al.  The European Programme for Critical Infrastructure Protection , 2009 .

[10]  James D. Myers,et al.  Regional critical infrastructure assessment: Kansas City , 2011, Int. J. Crit. Infrastructures.

[11]  A. Saltelli,et al.  Reliability Engineering and System Safety , 2008 .

[12]  Enrico Zio,et al.  An All-Hazard Approach for the Vulnerability Analysis of Critical Infrastructures , 2011 .

[13]  Ronald N. Allan,et al.  Bibliography on the Application of Probability Methods in Power System Reliability Evaluation 1996-1999 , 1984 .

[14]  Steven M. Rinaldi,et al.  Modeling and simulating critical infrastructures and their interdependencies , 2004, 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2004. Proceedings of the.

[15]  James H. Garrett,et al.  Data Management for Geospatial Vulnerability Assessment of Interdependencies in U.S. Power Generation , 2009 .

[16]  Borut Mavko,et al.  Application of the fault tree analysis for assessment of power system reliability , 2009, Reliab. Eng. Syst. Saf..

[17]  James H. Lambert,et al.  Inoperability Input-Output Model for Interdependent Infrastructure Sectors. II: Case Studies , 2005 .

[18]  Albert Jones,et al.  Toward modeling and simulation of critical national infrastructure interdependencies , 2005 .

[19]  Clifton A. Ericson,et al.  Hazard Analysis Techniques for System Safety , 2005 .

[20]  Wolfgang Kröger,et al.  Exploring critical infrastructure interdependency by hybrid simulation approach , 2012 .

[21]  Hafiz Abdur Rahman,et al.  Identification of sources of failures and their propagation in critical infrastructures from 12 years of public failure reports , 2009, Int. J. Crit. Infrastructures.

[22]  Wolfgang Kröger.  Critical infrastructures at risk: securing electric power supply , 2006, Int. J. Crit. Infrastructures.

[23]  Per Hokstad,et al.  A method for risk modeling of interdependencies in critical infrastructures , 2011, Reliab. Eng. Syst. Saf..

[24]  James H. Lambert,et al.  Inoperability Input-Output Model for Interdependent Infrastructure Sectors. I: Theory and Methodology , 2005 .

[25]  Rae Zimmerman,et al.  Social Implications of Infrastructure Network Interactions , 2001 .

[26]  Marvin Rausand,et al.  System Reliability Theory , 2020, Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics.

[27]  Jonas Johansson,et al.  Risk and Vulnerability Analysis of Interdependent Technical Infrastructures: Addressing Socio-Technical Systems , 2010 .

[28]  Anas Abou El Kalam,et al.  PolyOrBAC: A security framework for Critical Infrastructures , 2009, Int. J. Crit. Infrastructure Prot..

[29]  Oddbjørn Gjerde,et al.  Integrated approach for security of electricity supply analysis , 2010, Int. J. Syst. Assur. Eng. Manag..

[30]  James P. Peerenboom,et al.  Identifying, understanding, and analyzing critical infrastructure interdependencies , 2001 .