9 ms·
Not much about the potential severity of hacking something like this: You could probably blow circuit breakers in MV substations with a vulnerability like this
by davedx 2y ago
Not much about the potential severity of hacking something like this: You could probably blow circuit breakers in MV substations with a vulnerability like this if there are enough batteries under control in the same area and you get them to all discharge at max current at the same time. Serious, expensive damage. They could be substations connected to essential services like hospitals (though they’ll have backup gensets).
The energy transition is going to be a fun time for infosec!
- V__ 2y agoShouldn't the circuit breakers inside homes trip first?
- londons_explore 2y agoStability of the whole grid relies on there being no big synchronized events. Every home might have a 100 amp circuit breaker, but the grid cannot handle every home taking or giving 100 amps at the same time. 2 amps maybe...
- davedx 2y agoI don’t think so, each battery would be discharging at its rated current? The problem would be what happens “upstream” in the grid
- cesarb 2y ago> You could probably blow circuit breakers in MV substations with a vulnerability like this if there are enough batteries under control in the same area and you get them to all discharge at max current at the same time. Serious, expensive damage. AFAIK, all that would happen in this case would be that discharging the batteries would raise the grid voltage, and if it were raised enough, the over-voltage detection on the substation circuit breakers would trip and open these breakers normally. It wouldn't damage the breakers (or anything else at the substation), they're designed to deal with over-voltage events (for instance, when a large block of power consumers suddenly trips offline, the voltage raises until the power plants either throttle down or also trip offline).