Vulnerability analysis of cascading dynamics in smart grids under load redistribution attacks

Abstract Smart grids integrate power system engineering with information and communication technology to form a complex system. In this study, a framework is proposed to model the smart grid as interdependent complex networks and investigate the topology vulnerabilities subject to targeted attacks. As a serious targeted cyber-physical threat, the load redistribution attack is a type of false data injection attack. Adversaries can intentionally intercept communication traffic flows or cooperatively manipulate data transmitted over the communication network to mislead the control centre to perform incorrect actions, thereby tripping off lines or breakers, and even triggering cascading failures. Based on the intelligent attack mechanism, a new approach is introduced to identify sequential attack targets according to the node importance, which can in turn collapse the entire power system. Based on the particular characteristics of power systems, the components require achieving a power balance through the redistribution or shedding of loads in each attack. Compared to random removal and block removal, the effectiveness of the proposed strategy was validated on the IEEE 39-bus and the actual provincial backbone network. From the analysis of the experimental results, we find that the topology vulnerability is closely related to the critical node types and locations.