Rising vitality applied sciences are remodeling the electrical grid by including flexibility, reliability and expanded energy technology, however may improve cyber threat, since many legacy gadgets weren’t constructed to fulfill at present’s cybersecurity expectations.
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UL Options has launched a new certification program that creates the primary industry-wide cybersecurity baseline for distributed vitality assets (DER) and inverter-based gadgets, akin to microgrids, batteries, hydrogen programs and electrical automobile infrastructure. This certification program gives producers, utilities, regulators and grid operators with a consensus-based framework for mitigating that threat.
“Our new cybersecurity testing and certification program brings readability and customary expectations by offering a standards-driven step to cut back cyber threat, which is crucial for grid reliability, defending infrastructure and rising public confidence within the new applied sciences that energy communities,” stated Ken Boyce, VP at UL Options. “By combining cybersecurity analysis with security testing, we assist producers embed safety from the beginning and provides consumers confidence in distributed vitality and inverter-based merchandise.”
Testing for this cybersecurity certification follows necessities in UL 2941, the “Customary for Cybersecurity of Distributed Power and Inverter-Primarily based Sources,” which units cybersecurity necessities for networked, software-driven gadgets that deal with vital vitality flows and have an effect on grid stability. The usual encompasses technical controls, akin to entry administration and cryptography, in addition to coverage areas together with the dealing with of delicate information and documentation.
It’s designed to enrich present security testing, UL 1741, the “Customary for Inverters, Converters, Controllers and Interconnection System Gear for Use With Distributed Power Sources” — not substitute it — giving producers choices for the best way to meet the required protections.
The brand new cybersecurity certification program developed from fieldwork, together with check instances printed by the U.S. Division of Power’s Nationwide Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) in 2019, which targeted on authentication, authorization, confidentiality and information integrity for microgrid communications. These efforts highlighted the necessity for a devoted cybersecurity commonplace that accommodates the varied vary of DER and inverter-based applied sciences and their complicated possession constructions.
“As vitality assets combine with the grid, cybersecurity can now not be an afterthought and have to be constructed into gadget design and deployment,” stated Danish Saleem, senior researcher in NLR’s Cybersecurity Analysis Heart. “Certification to UL 2941 by UL Options provides the {industry} a rigorous, sensible path to verify these protections are in place, growing confidence for utilities, house owners and communities that rely upon these assets.”
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