Critical information in coordinating defense of interconnected power systems

The vulnerability of critical infrastructures has become a key-concern in recent years. The faults (in particular as consequences of malicious attacks) may be both "physical", regarding system components, and "cyber", regarding information/communication system. Simultaneous attacks to different components, both physical and cyber, may be possible. In this context the identification and rank of the critical information of a given interconnected power system is of the utmost importance. In this paper we propose a game model, based on the socially rational multi-agent system and fictitious play characteristics, that can be used to represent the post-fault decision-making process of interconnected system operators (SO) by integrating the physical model and impact of information. The model allows for the ranking of the critical information and for the determination of network re-enforcements to reduce the impacts of critical information.. The proposed model and methods are applied to a 34-buses test system for illustrative purposes.