TM
ELECTRIC GRID PROTECTION
E-PRO™
HANDBOOK
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
EPRO Handbook
Executive Summary
First Edition – June 30, 2014
Dr. Paul Stockton, Editor
Managing Director, Sonecon, LLC
Contributing authors and advisors:
William Bryan
Congresswoman Yvette Clark
Donald Daigler
Congressman Trent Franks
John Kappenman
Thomas MacLellan
Dr. Thomas J. Overbye
Raj Rana
David Roop
Avi Schnurr
Davidson Scott
Note: Due to the publication schedule for this early preprint of the executive summary, the contributions of many
additional industry, government and nongovernmental
personnel will be acknowleged in the full first edition of the
Handbook.
This project would have been impossible without the
generous support and active encouragement of a number
of philanthropic foundations and individuals, and the
authors and publisher wish to offer special commendation
and thanks to these dedicated, visionary philanthropists:
Dr. Jack Templeton; The Newton D. and Rochelle F. Becker
Foundation; Steve and Rita Emerson; The Michael and
Andrea Leven Family Foundation; Kharlene and Chuck
Boxenbaum; Steven and Bonnie Stern; Kenneth and Nira
Abramowitz.
Published and hosted by:
The Electric Infrastructure Security (EIS) Council
Electric Grid
Protection
(E-PRO )
Handbook
TM
An evolving, cooperative resource for infrastructure resilience
and cross-sector recovery planning and coordination,
addressing severe hazards to electric infrastructure
International delegates confer at the first Electric Infrastructure Security Summit in
Westminster Palace, London, 2010
U.S. C-5 military aircraft transporting emergency repair crews and
vehicles for Superstorm Sandy.
Forward
According to industry and government studies in the United States and allied nations,
there are growing risks of long duration, wide area electric outages due to a range
of increasingly severe hazards, both natural and malicious. These hazards include
catastrophic earthquakes, highly destructive hurricanes, Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)
weapons, sophisticated cyber attacks and coordinated physical assaults on key grid
components. Many of these hazards could cause electric power outages lasting far longer,
and covering a much wider area, than those caused by Superstorm Sandy, and could
strike with little or no warning.
Industry, government, and non-governmental organizations are partnering to strengthen
the grid’s resilience against these extraordinarily severe hazards. Deepening and
expanding their collaboration into new realms is essential to meet the many resilience
challenges that remain.
This Handbook provides a user-oriented decision framework and tailorable
recommendations to help industry and its partners reduce the impact and duration of
power outages that severe hazards will cause, and help save many thousands of lives that
may otherwise be lost. It is designed to support the ongoing efforts of the electric industry
in the United States and abroad to reduce grid vulnerability.
This document also recommends new ways for government and non-governmental
organization to help utilities restore power in severe, multi-region events, and proposes
broader cross-sector disaster response initiatives that can make especially valuable
contributions to resilience in the years to come.
The International E-ProTM Report
All hazard response and power restoration planning.
Many of the Handbook’s proposals are structured to build resilience against all hazards,
natural and manmade, that could cause catastrophic, extended duration power outages
over multiple regions of the United States or other nations. This all-hazards approach
to response planning is especially useful for framing recommendations to reduce the
consequences such events will have for public safety, national security, and the economy.
An all-hazards approach is also helpful for identifying new partnership opportunities
to help utilities accelerate the restoration of power, including Federal, State and local
government agencies, as well as non-governmental organizations.
Hazard-specific mitigation: the special challenges of electromagnetic threats
Mitigation measures to protect the grid from damage tend to be more hazard-specific than
those for response planning. The electric industry is making great strides in protecting
the grid from many severe hazards, including catastrophic storms, cyber threats and
coordinated physical attacks. In contrast, efforts to develop cost-effective mitigation
measures against emerging electromagnetic threats (E-threats) – Severe Space Weather
and Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) weapons – are in the developing stages. For this first
edition of the Handbook, the mitigation section will, therefore, address primarily these
less familiar and especially challenging E-threats.
Focusing on realistic, limited, cost-effective mitigation
The potentially devastating effects of E-threats on an unprotected power grid should
not lead to the mistaken belief that such threats are overwhelming and impossible to
mitigate. They are neither. Across the United States, utilities are already developing costeffective investment strategies against Severe Space Weather and EMP. (For the United
States, the Federal regulatory process is expected to soon provide a set of mandatory
mitigation requirements for Severe Space weather). Utilities and other stakeholders are
also beginning to call for concrete, practical measures that the Department of Defense
and other Federal Departments could take to contribute expertise on EMP protection
options. What is missing is a framework to share these emerging best practices across the
full range of resilience stakeholders, and to sustain progress on a voluntary, collaborative
basis to build resilience against these non-traditional hazards. The Handbook provides
such a framework, and identifies a spectrum of relatively modest but high-payoff
investment options that utilities may wish to consider. In addition to the options
proposed in the Handbook, further recommendations will be provided, on a limitedaccess basis, derived from specific best practices developed by collaborating power
companies, Regional Transmission Organizations and Independent System Operators,
and other grid stakeholders.
6
Executive Summary
The Handbook as a Decision Support Tool
Neither the Handbook’s E-threat specific mitigation options nor the proposals for allhazard consequence management and power restoration are intended to be prescriptive
in a “one size fits all” manner. Each utility and their partner organizations in government
and beyond face unique circumstances and requirements for building resilience against
catastrophic outages. Rather, the recommendations provide a set of especially promising,
operator-oriented, actionable options for partners to adjust to their own needs, and
establish a framework for the multi-year collaborative process that will be required to
build resilience through expanded partnerships. This first edition focuses on the electric
sector -- on resilience and restoration options, and on opportunities for support from the
Federal, State and NGO sectors that could be crucial in recovering from severe hazards.
Future editions will propose initiatives to support coordinated resilience with other
critical infrastructure sectors, including natural gas pipelines and other energy systems,
communications, water and wastewater systems, and other sectors vital for public health
and safety.
7
Executive
Summary
Executive Summary
Black Sky Hazards: The Challenge
In less than a century, electric power grids have become truly foundational. The economy,
national security, and public safety of the United States and its partner nations are
utterly dependent on the flow of electricity. Consistent with this critical role, utilities and
other stakeholders have made the grid increasingly resilient against storms and other
traditional natural hazards. Today, however, an array of novel threats are emerging that
the grid was never originally designed to survive.
Cyber weapons, coordinated physical attacks on key grid components, Electromagnetic
Pulse (EMP) weapons, severe solar storms, catastrophic earthquakes and other hazards
of unprecedented destructiveness can all create “black sky days:” i.e., extraordinary and
hazardous events that are utterly unlike the “blue sky days” in which utilities optimally
function, and which would produce power outages lasting longer and covering a wider
area than those created by Superstorm Sandy.
The EPRO Handbook Project examines how power companies, government agencies and
other key stakeholders can partner to build resilience against these black sky hazards, and
significantly reduce the impact and duration of the outages they may otherwise cause.
A growing number of studies have highlighted the societal disruption that extended,
wide-area power outages would cause. Such outages could result in the shutdown of
municipal water and wastewater systems, the failure of hospitals and pharmaceutical
suppliers, and the breakdown of food manufacturing, food distribution and other critical
infrastructure sectors vital to public health and safety. Without focused, comprehensive
resilience and response planning against black sky hazards, such long-duration outages
could put societal continuity at risk.
In response to these risks, power companies are investing heavily to help protect the
grid against non-traditional threats. State utility commissioners are developing new
approaches to determine which kinds of proposed investments are prudent and cost
effective against such hazards. State and federal government agencies, non-governmental
organizations, global insurance companies and other key stakeholders are also forging
deeper partnerships with industry to strengthen the grid’s resilience, and are seeking new
resilience guidelines and analytic support for plans to reduce the duration and disruptive
effects of outages that do occur.
This Handbook is the first edition of a planned, multi-year project focused on building
resilience against black sky hazards. Designed to help the power industry and its partners
advance their collaborative efforts, the Handbook summarizes specific mitigation options
and best practices, and proposes voluntary guidelines and planning recommendations
addressing these emerging, severe threats. In particular, the Handbook is designed to
11
The International E-ProTM Report
address three primary challenges for resilience that black sky hazards pose -- each of
which offers concrete opportunities for progress.
First, black sky hazards can not only create unprecedented requirements for first
responders and their partners to save and sustain lives, but can also make those lifesaving operations vastly more difficult to conduct. The flow of disaster assistance depends
on transportation systems, communications networks, emergency operations centers
and other facilities dependent upon electric power. When the grid goes down, many of
the facilities providing these critical support functions have emergency power generators
with sufficient fuel to operate for at least a few days. During wide-area outages that last
substantially longer, however, generators will begin to break down and supplies of fuel for
them will quickly fall short.
In addition, given the disruptive effects that black sky hazards could create for
infrastructure sectors essential to saving and sustaining lives, disaster response and
recovery operations cannot be effectively organized without extensive, cross-sector
planning and training. Absent such collaborative efforts, operations to manage the
consequences of a catastrophic outage will be jeopardized precisely when they are most
needed.
Second, a historic gap persists between two requirements for resilience against the
risk of catastrophic outages: plans and capabilities for power restoration, and those for
“traditional” disaster response operations to manage the consequences that outages
cause. Sandy has spurred initiatives to help meet both of these requirements. All too
often, however, these efforts are going forward without sufficient integration between
them.
For power restoration, utilities are strengthening their mechanisms to provide for mutual
assistance across multiple regions of the United States. For disaster response, a growing
number of state agencies are beginning to focus on planning to save and sustain lives in
catastrophes even larger than Sandy. Yet, surprisingly few states have made support for
power restoration a core priority within their overall response plans. Florida and other
states in the Hurricane belt have demonstrated how effectively the National Guard and
other state organizations can assist utilities by clearing roads and conducting additional
support operations. Drawing on lessons learned from Sandy, a number of other states
are now seeking to apply such best practices. That adaptation process has only begun,
however, especially with regard to 1) non-traditional hazards such as coordinated physical
attacks on key grid components; 2) multi-region events that require integrated planning
for disaster response and power restoration far beyond state lines; and 3) the disruptive
impact of long duration outages on infrastructure essential for both traditional disaster
response and power restoration. Moreover, key partners in the U.S. disaster response
system -- including the Red Cross and other nongovernmental organizations -- are rarely
12
Executive Summary
integrated into power restoration planning, even though their capabilities could prove
uniquely valuable to support power restoration crews and other missions.
Third, while resilience investments focused on protecting critical grid components
against such black sky hazards may greatly reduce the scope and duration of future
outages, regulators and utilities often find it difficult to reach consensus on which
investments are prudent and cost-effective.
This has been particularly true for protection against Electromagnetic Threats (E-Threats)
such as Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) weapons and Geomagnetic Disturbances (GMD)
caused by severe space weather. For example, limited test data and the high variability
of Extra-High Voltage (EHV) transformer designs has made it difficult for companies to
devise analysis-based criteria for protection against GMD.
The Federal regulatory process is now poised to produce a series of rules to guide
investments in protection against geomagnetic disturbances.1 Protection against GMD
will still leave the grid vulnerable to EMP, however, and little coordinated planning or
specific resources have been broadly available for EMP protection of power grid assets.
The Federal Government has, to date, done little to share its expertise on EMP protection
options and emerging best practices. Moreover, while relatively modest investments in
protecting key grid components may offer major benefits for resilience against EMP, little
systematic research has been done to assess these options, or to provide a framework
for making investment decisions. Providing such a framework is a primary focus of the
Handbook.
1
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Order 779:
Reliability Standards for Geomagnetic Disturbances, Issued May 16, 2013.
13
The International E-ProTM Report
U.S. Critical Infrastructure and Incident
Response and Recovery Policies –
The Foundation for Progress
Pennsylvania National Guard Joint Emergency Operations Center during Superstorm Sandy
A key finding of the Handbook is that existing Federal policies and organizational
arrangements provide a strong foundation for progress, especially through voluntary,
collaborative initiatives. The National Response Framework (NRF) and National Incident
Management System (NIMS) provide especially important foundations for progress.
These documents offer a basis to launch a “Whole of Nation” effort to strengthen
resilience against severe outages, and integrate the full range of industry, government,
and non-governmental organizations that -- if prepared to operate in a disrupted
environment -- can help save and sustain many thousands of lives that will otherwise be
at risk. Emergency Support Function 12 (ESF-12, Energy) provides the key foundation
for the Handbook’s recommendations to broaden and deepen support to utilities for
accelerated power restoration operations. The National Infrastructure Protection Plan,
its Energy Sector-Specific planning annex and other sources of U.S. infrastructure
policy provide similarly valuable starting points for building consensus on how (and
how much) to protect the grid against EMP and other black sky hazards. The Handbook
leverages these existing organizational arrangements and sources of guidance, and offers
recommendations that are fully consistent with them.
14
Executive Summary
Superstorm Sandy: Building on Lessons-Learned
The Handbook recommendations also support and build on the array of resilience
initiatives launched in response to Sandy. The Federal government, the electric industry,
State and local leaders, and other stakeholders have created a broad range of efforts to
capture the lessons learned from the Superstorm and build resilience against even more
severe outages. Helping inform and deepen integration across these initiatives is a key
goal of the Handbook.
Federal Initiatives
Many Federal Departments were surprised by the scope and scale of requests to support
emergency power and power restoration operations during Sandy, and had to develop
innovative mechanism to coordinate and provide assitance requested by states in the
stricken region. The Department of Defense, for example, had no plans in place to use
C-5 transport aircraft to bring utility trucks and crews from California and other Western
states to New York, and collaborated with Federal and industry partners to do so literally
“on the fly.”
A number of significant Federal planning efforts are underway to institutionalize and
improve upon the support efforts developed during the response to Sandy. Especially
notable are the initiatives by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to create
a Power Outage Incident Annex plan, and efforts by the Department of Energy to
strengthen power restoration planning under ESF-12.
The problem addressed by the Handbook: how to leverage these efforts to build resilience
against black sky events, and bring power restoration into the heart of disaster response
planning.
Industry Initiatives for Wide-Area Outages
The damage Sandy inflicted on the grid was unprecedented in its geographic scope.
Approximately 10 million customers lost power across 24 states in the Northeast,
Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest. In response the electric industry used its regional mutual
assistance agreements to deploy over 60 thousand power restoration workers, from
dozens of States and Canada. Now the electric industry has launched an ambitious effort
to prepare for “National Response Events:” that is, the most serious outages caused by a
major hurricane, earthquake, act of war or other event that requires power restoration
resources from multiple U.S. regions. Utilities are also ramping up their capacity to
share critical spare grid components, and -- especially important -- plan to invest many
hundreds of billions of dollars in coming years to modernize the grid and strengthen its
resilience. As industry scales up its capacity to protect against and respond to National
Response Events (NREs), a unique opportunity is emerging to expand government and
NGO support for those initiatives.
15
The International E-ProTM Report
The Critical Role of States and Related Stakeholders
In order to assess these resilience proposals to ensure they are prudent and cost-effective
from the perspective of rate payers, State Public Utility Commissions (PUCs) across the
Nation are beginning to develop new regulatory guidelines and assessment tools. State
government energy officials and their Federal partners in the Department of Energy
are also creating new initiatives to improve grid resilience, including efforts to improve
planning and capabilities for power restoration under Emergency Support Function 12
(ESF-12). Organizations such as the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, the North
American Electric Reliability Corporation and the Electricity Subsector Coordinating
Council (ESCC) have launched additional resilience initiatives against “high impact”
hazards, including severe solar storms and EMP. Building on this burst of initiatives and
finding innovative ways to help advance them is a core focus of the Handbook.
Emergency response operations
At least as striking, Sandy has also spurred the emergence of new and immensely valuable
partners for grid resilience. State and Territorial Governors are especially notable in this
regard. Since Governors have primary responsibility for the public health and safety of
their citizens, and because the National Response Framework puts them at the heart of
the process for requesting Federal disaster assistance, they have long played a central
role in the U.S. disaster response system. Sandy drastically raised the visibility of power
restoration as a priority for disaster response. With the support of the National Governors
Association, Governors across the United States are driving new initiatives to strengthen
grid resilience and help accelerate restoration, including efforts by State officials in
transportation, public safety, and other departments to facilitate the flow of and support
for multi-state response operations.
16
Executive Summary
State emergency management and homeland security leaders are playing key roles in these
efforts. Until Sandy, few emergency management organizations beyond the Hurricane
belt had focused on power restoration as a top priority for disaster preparedness.
The National Association of Emergency Managers, which oversees the Emergency
Management Assistance Compact system that provides for the flow of state disaster
response resources (including the National Guard) across state lines, had never examined
how that system might be brought in direct support of the utilities’ mutual assistance
system during a catastrophic outage. Nor had the Federal Emergency Management
Association developed a plan for long-duration outages and the unique challenges for
coordinating and providing the Federal disaster assistance that such outages could create.
That FEMA planning effort will soon be underway.
The Role of NGOs
In the United States, efforts to bring Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) such as
the Red Cross, the United Way, and faith-based disaster response organizations into this
partnership are only in the beginning stages. A recent NGO-focused seminar conducted
to provide recommendations for the Handbook helped launch that exploratory effort.
As discussed in the seminar, the National Response Framework and Emergency Support
Function 6 (ESF - 6, Mass Care) give NGOs vital roles in saving and sustaining lives during
disasters, including emergency sheltering and feeding operations. In catastrophic outages
lasting weeks or even months longer than Sandy, the disruption of food distribution and
municipal water systems and the potential need for mass movement of people out of
impacted regions would create unprecedented requirements for mass care.
Yet, a long duration power outage would also disrupt the ability of NGOs and
their volunteers to function. Given the impact that such an outage would have on
communications and transportation, including the disabling of virtually all gasoline
pumps, NGOs would confront unprecedented operaional challenges. Little analysis has
emerged on the measures that NGOs and other disaster response organizations can take
to build their own resilience against catastrophic outages, so they can sustain lives on the
scale that such an event will necessitate. Still less analysis has examined how NGO’s could
help downsize this response challenge by supporting utility power restoration crews and
their families and shortening outage duration.
17
The International E-ProTM Report
U.S. Coast Guard helicopter bringing emergency equipment after Superstorm Sandy
The Four Sector Black Sky Resilience and Response Seminars – A Starting
Point for the EPRO Handbook
In devising an appropriate framework for focused resilience investment, and proposing
ways to expand collaborative relationships for emergency response, the Handbook draws
on a series of seminars and leadership conferences conducted with representatives from
electric utilities and Regional Transmission Operators, State and Federal regulators,
State and local governments, NGOs, and all of the Federal Departments and agencies
responsible for disaster response and support for power restoration. In some cases these
seminars identified areas where participants had disagreements over grid vulnerabilities
and how they should be mitigated. The Handbook highlights those areas of disagreement
for further analysis and consensus-building. In most areas, however, participants were
able to reach agreement on recommendations for both immediate and longer-term
implementation.
The Handbook summarizes mitigation approaches and expanded restoration and
response opportunities that grew from these working meetings; it reviews these efforts to
bring new government and NGO partners into collaboration with the electric industry;
and it recommends additional collaborative initiatives to shorten the impact and duration
of electric power outages that black sky hazards may otherwise cause.
None of these proposals are intended to be prescriptive in a “one size fits all” manner; each
utility, State and their partner organizations face unique circumstances and requirements
for building resilience against catastrophic outages. Rather, the recommendations
provide a set of especially promising options for partners to adjust to their own needs,
and establish a framework for the multi-year collaborative process that will be required
to build resilience through a whole-of-nation partnership.
18
Executive Summary
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PROTECTING THE
GRID FROM GMD AND EMP
Ideally, investments in protecting the grid can help strengthen resilience against all
hazards, In practice, however, more-targeted, hazard-specific investments sometimes
offer especially significant benefits. As indicated in the Forward to this Handbook,
mitigation of E-threats is commonly recognized as far less mature than protection
against any other emerging black sky hazard. As a result, the mitigation section of this
first edition focuses on EMP, Severe Space Weather and related electromagnetic threats.
In contrast, the response and power restoration section is framed primarily from an allhazards perspective.
Chapter 2 of the Handbook, summarized here, is focused on E-threat mitigation for
power generation, transmission and distribution systems. The vulnerability of generators
to E-threats provides the starting point for this analysis.
For power restoration following any severe outage, availability of adequate, protected
generation capacity will be essential. Restoration approaches using available power from
outside an affected region – or from unaffected generating stations inside that region
– are typically the most effective means of initiating restoration. In other situations,
catastrophic outages (especially those caused by E-threats) could put a premium on black
start capabilities. In both scenarios, however, an optimal resilience plan would focus
particular attention on ensuring broad protection of generation assets, both black start
facilities and other major generating plants, in addition to the cranking path transmission
system that will deliver that power from the blackstart generators to other generators and
critical loads. Both categories must be addressed.
For power restoration from both external sources and by using black start facilities,
specific hardening measures against E1 and E32 will need to be examined, to ensure the
availability of adequate generation for a successful Black Sky Day restoration plan.
For black start generation, it is worth noting that, during the past decade, the retirement
of coal-fired power plants and stringent EPA regulations have helped spur a decline in
black start capabilities for electricity and fuel systems in many regions. A large number
of utilities are now in the process of strengthening their capacity to conduct black start
operations, and are examining how the shift to gas generators and renewable generation
may alter black start requirements and capabilities. Utilities and their resilience
partners should analyze requirements for such capabilities, and for emergency fuel and
2
A malicious EMP attack produces powerful, damaging pulses, known as “E1” and “E3,” that can damage or destroy a
portion of exposed power grid components. See footnote 4.
19
The International E-ProTM Report
other supporting components of black start systems, to determine whether additional
investment in this realm would have significant risk-reduction benefits.
Integrated, Cost-Effective Power Grid Protection Planning
For most power-grid components, E-Threat mitigation measures may generally be
defined in two categories: Protection against HEMP E1 or IEMI, and protection against
Severe Space Weather or HEMP E3.3 In the summary below, a top level review of the
Handbook’s discussion is provided for both categories.
While power grids in the U.S. and elsewhere often have complex and changing ownership
profiles, the actual performance of power grids tends to be organic. It is generally not
possible to implement measures affecting one arbitrary segment of the power grid without
affecting the rest of the network. Thus, an important early step in grid protection may
be to develop uniform protection guidelines, and a recommended, milestone-driven,
grid-wide implementation plan. That plan could, for example, call for staged protection,
with prioritized protection implementation in different regions at different stages. With
heavy involvement of power companies, Regional Transmission Operators and other
industry organizing bodies, such a plan could provide for different protection priorities
at different grid nodes or facilities, while also taking into account regional differences in
inherent vulnerability and grid architecture
Guidelines emerging from such a plan could, for example, reference options for three
levels of E-threat protection for a given power grid facility, as part of the staging process
for different regions.
Level I: Minimum Protection / Gradual Recovery.
Minimal protection, with few facility enhancements, but with pre-planned and
properly resourced procedural recovery plans.
Level II: Intermediate Protection / Rapid Recovery.
Facilities designed to provide for pre-planned, rapid recovery of normal operation
after an e-threat event.
3
20
HEMP – High Altitude EMP, and electromagnetic pulse broadcast over a wide geographic area due to a nuclear
detonation above the atmosphere. HEMP produces a very sudden, short duration, nanosecond class pulse – E1 –
which can disrupt or burn out a fraction of electronics in the exposed geographic area. It also produces a much
longer, seconds to minutes pulse which, like severe space weather, causes geomagnetic disturbances that can
drive Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GIC) through the ground, which can damage EHV transformers. IEMI –
Intentional Electromagnetic Interference – involves producing the equivalent of an HEMP E1 pulse, potentially even
more intense, but over a small, local region (kilometer class or less).
Executive Summary
Level III: Comprehensive protection / Immediate Recovery.
Best possible protection, intended to allow nearly uninterrupted operation of a facility
through an e-threat event.
As a first stage, with little e-threat protection available for the majority of the power grid,
a grid-wide plan could call for bringing designated high-priority segments of the power
grid to meet Level I standards, while parallel efforts could work to bring critical nodes
and facilities to Level II or Level III conditions. It is important to note that there is a great
deal of “bang for the buck” for level I and II protection. Careful planning for limited,
prioritized level III comprehensive protection can ensure an overall protection plan is
cost effective and affordable
For new grid expansion and improvement projects, “engineering-in” protection in the
design phase is an important and cost-effective priority. Early experience by leading power
companies has shown that such built-in e-threat protection for new grid components
and systems is both affordable and effective.
Recommendations for Severe Space Weather GMD or HEMP E3 Protection
While both Severe Space Weather and HEMP E3 can cause large, damaging GIC currents
to flow in EHV transformers, the two effects may have very different characteristics in
terms of warning time.
Given adequate satellite-based sensors, minutes to hours of warning may be available
for a severe solar event. Although such warnings cannot, at current levels of technology,
reliably predict whether a large Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) will produce high GIC’s
at any specific location, they could provide lead time to implement various procedural
protective measures. The arrival of an EMP E3 pulse, on the other hand, can only be
reliably predicted by using EMP E1 sensors, since there will typically be a many-second
delay between the two pulses. While not providing adequate time for human intervention,
this delay could allow for automated approaches to protect EHV transformers, if desired.
GIC protection strategies
Level I GIC Protection: Power companies already often use procedural approaches
for protection against commonly-seen GIC levels, by modifying grid behavior to
unload heavily loaded transformers, reducing generation levels at nuclear power
plants and increasing generation at more expensive, less vulnerable generating
facilities. Adequate availability and numbers of spare transformers on site could also
play a role, as could other transformer sparing strategies.
21
The International E-ProTM Report
Level II and III GIC Protection: For severe space weather events and HEMP E3,
the potential for immediate or near term (weeks or months) consequent transformer
damage, and the potentially large number of affected transformers, would encourage
a shift toward higher implementation of automated approaches.
Automated Protection Approaches
• GIC current blockers
By preventing GIC from entering a transformer, this approach can be quite effective.
While such protection will, typically, drive the GIC elsewhere in the grid and increase
current levels for other transformers, studies done in preparation for this handbook
indicate that there is a systematic decrease of GIC when current blockers are used in
the system. Further, an overall decrease in the number of at-risk transformers of about
50% typically accrues for each protected transformer. And, of course, this approach
assures protection for sensitive and important transformers, if implemented.
Use of GIC current blockers will, however, require additional evaluation to provide
high levels of confidence that it will not inadvertently introduce other instabilities
into the grid. Over the coming year, it may be helpful for power companies to call for
wide distribution of available current blocker test data from recent Idaho National
Laboratory Testing. EIS Council plans to release for review, soon, results of its own
preliminary evaluation of data from New Zealand’s Transpower, which has had
current blocking/dampening technology installed and in use for more than two
decades.
• Series Capacitance
Although more expensive than GIC current blockers, and with more limited
effectiveness, series capacitance helps reduce GIC levels, and comes with high
confidence and a long history of successful implementation. Series capacitor systems
are in place on long-haul, extra high voltage lines in California, West Virginia,
Quebec and throughout the world.
• Reducing Transformer Loads
Transformer de-rating4, use of full transformers versus auto transformers, or
simply use of more transformers in the system will all provide larger magnetic and
thermal margins for transformers under GIC conditions. Use of reduced loading
may not be effective for autotransformers as the tertiary windings are, in most cases,
4
22
Based on new, very recent analysis, transformer load reduction may yield limited or no protection for auto
transformers. See the full report for a more extensive discussion.
Executive Summary
already unloaded, but will still allow the flow of all Zero Sequence harmonics that
are present due to GIC flows in the main windings.
• Real-time, Threshold-based Transformer Protection
Intentionally switching selected EHV transformers out of the grid, while intentionally
inducing a power outage, may be an acceptable strategy under severe conditions,
if implementation and decision making is carefully coordinated in advance. Such
(pre-planned, automated) steps could be taken, for example, following an E1 pulse,
or at some predefined thermal or harmonic levels during the E3 event, given the
likelihood that the grid will, in any case, shut down in such a scenario.
Recommendations for HEMP E1 and IEMI Protection
These pulses can damage a fraction of low voltage electronics. SCADA5 controllers, digital
protection relays, Master and Remote Terminal Units (MTUs and RTUs), and other
control and switching center computer hardware as well as emergency communication
gear. All are examples of vulnerable hardware.
It is important, however, to note that only a statistical fraction of such hardware will
typically be affected. The most cost effective strategy, therefore, is not to assume the only
option is Level III - Comprehensive Protection of an entire power grid. Instead, a cost
effective approach would be to plan for a level of protection that will allow reasonable
post-outage restoration and recovery. Thus, while it will be essential that selected black
start or other critical generating plants and cranking paths6 are protected to Level
III, most of a protected power grid can be protected at lower levels. Overall, this can
minimize costs while providing adequate resilience to allow for post-event restoration
and recovery.
HEMP E1 and IEMI Protection Strategies
Level I: Minimum Protection /Gradual Recovery.
This protection level would require defining vulnerable components and ensuring:
(a) Availability of adequate, properly protected and staged (typically low cost) spares,
including emergency communication gear and diagnostic equipment.
(b) Well-defined procedures and associated training for post-event restoration.
5
6
SCADA is an acronym for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition - It typically is used in reference to a computer
control system.
Cranking Path: A portion of the power grid that can be isolated and then energized to deliver electric power from a
generation source to enable the startup of other generating units
23
The International E-ProTM Report
Level II: Intermediate Protection / Rapid Recovery.
This level of protection would typically be a minor upgrade from Level I. One
difference, as an example, might be pre-positioning of spares, requiring only manual
switching to replace damaged segments of grid control electronics.
Level III: Comprehensive Protection / Immediate Recovery.
For designated blackstart or other critical generators and cranking paths, this would
supplement Level I and Level II measures to include shielding enhancements to
facilities, and use of (properly terminated) shielded cables and filters. Replacement of
control cables with fiber optic cables provides good protection, if properly planned. In
some cases properly specified surge arrestors could be used, and vulnerable switches
and routers could be replaced.7
For each of these protection levels, improved access to U.S. government information on
HEMP threat and protection options would be helpful.
7
24
“Developing an actionable EMP/GMD hardening program for an electric utility,” IEEE. Russell Neal, William Radasky,
John G. Kappenman.
Executive Summary
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POWER RESTORATION
AND CONSEQUENCE MANAGEMENT
Strengthening preparedness for black sky hazards will require initiatives at two levels of
effort: within each State and across multiple regions of the United States. Every governor
will be held accountable by their citizens for the speed and effectiveness of consequence
management and power restoration operations. The recommendations that follow
propose ways to strengthen State-specific plans and capabilities for catastrophic outages,
and deepen collaboration between each State’s utilities, its National Guard and other
State organizations, and the NGOs that its citizens lead.
Yet, because such “worse than Sandy” events will affect major portions of the United
States, preparedness efforts also need to be integrated on a regional and multi-region
basis, in close coordination with industry mutual assistance initiatives for National
Response Events requiring the nationwide flow of power restoration resources. New
collaborative structures will also be essential to sustain support for the implementation
of all of these initiatives and build consensus on unresolved issues.
The recommendations below draw on the series of seminars conducted in support of the
Handbook Project. As stakeholders review these recommendations and adjust them to
meet their own specific reqirements, the Handbook Project will help host and support
those efforts.
■ State-Level Initiatives and Recommendations
1. Supporting Governors’ Leadership and Decision-making
In many States, a catastrophic power outage -- especially if created by a major
earthquake or similarly catastrophic hazard -- will immediately overwhelm the
ability of local first responders and their NGO partners to manage the consequences
of the event. Governors will require the information and communications
capabilities needed to rapidly determine where State National Guard and other
response capabilities should be allocated, what requirements for Federal assistance
will be most urgent, how to communicate with citizens on the response operations
underway, and how they can best help their families and neighbors in need.
Sandy illuminated the degree to which these decisions by the Governor will be made
in a white-hot political environment. A catastrophic power outage will represent a
severe political crisis for every elected official in the affected region. Federal, state
and local leaders will create urgent and incessant demands for information on how
quickly power will be restored (“Estimated Time of Restoration”), and how scarce
consequence management and restoration resources are being allocated.
25
The International E-ProTM Report
Specific recommendations:
•
Strengthen emergency power for leadership facilities and Continuity of
Operations/Continuity of Government (COOP/COG). Every Governor
should review the adequacy of the emergency generators and stored, on-site
fuel at their Emergency Operations Centers, relocation facilities, and other
critical sites and operational capabilities. These facilities are typically wellprepared for relatively short outages. However, for outages lasting more than
a month, where re-supply of emergency fuel from commercial sources will
be problematic, their ability to function and support gubernatorial decisionmaking will be at risk. States should consider storing additional fuel and backup
generators and taking additional mitigation measures to manage this risk.
•
Improve situational awareness. In a catastrophic outage that disrupts the
usual means on which States rely to gather and integrate disaster information,
Governors will face special challenges gaining the situational awareness
they need to lead consequence management operations and allocate scarce
resources. In response to Sandy, States have developed a number of options
to remedy these problems. A number of States are exploring the use of DHSfunded State Fusion Centers to support critical infrastructure and emergency
response operations, and are strengthening the ability of utilities to participate
and feed data into these centers.
New York National Guard Operations in Superstorm Sandy
State National Guard organizations and their State and Federal partners are
also developing geospatially-based common operating pictures (COPs) that
can display the disposition of disaster response forces and damage to bridges
and other critical infrastructure essential for power restoration. Such efforts
to improve situational awareness for Governors will have especially strong
26
Executive Summary
benefits if they integrate data from utilities and other critical infrastructure
owners and operators, that can provide for consistent messaging on restoration
timelines.timelines.
•
Integrate power restoration into new State plans for responding to
catastrophes. FEMA is partnering with State emergency management and
homeland security leaders across the nation to build plans for catastrophic
events, many of which focus on the specific hazards in that State that pose the
greatest risk -- that is, 1) hazards that are most likely to strike; 2) hazards to
which the State is especially vulnerable; and 3) hazards that would have the
most devastating consequences should an event occur.
California has three such plans for region-specific hazards from South to North:
the Southern California Catastrophic Earthquake Response Plan, the Bay Area
Readiness Response Plan, and the Cascadia Earthquake and Tsunami Response
Plan. Hawaii, Florida, and many other States are also building hazard-specific
plans for events more destructive than they have ever before experienced.
These plans vary widely in the degree to which they include power restoration
as a major area of focus, and the extent to which emergency managers have
included utility perspectives on support requirement.
Such integrated planning should become the norm. As part of an expanding
planning process, plans will need to be developed to address each of the
potential black sky hazards.
2. State National Guard Initiatives and Recommendations
State National Guard Organizations across the United States are launching initiatives
to scale up support for their governors in consequence management and power
restoration operations. In New York, New Jersey and other States struck by Sandy,
as well as Florida and other States in the hurricane belt with ample experience in
power restoration support, major advances are underway to identify and prepare
for the highest priority roles that the Guard would play in a catastrophic power
outage.
All of these efforts involve industry as a key partner. Indeed, as other States explore
similar initiatives and leverage emerging best practices, it is essential that utilities
be part of that process to identify the support missions that will be most important
for the Guard to provide. Some of these support missions are well understood and
frequently exercised in hurricane states. Road clearance, security/public safety
operations, and the provision of State National Guard military installations to serve
as staging bases for utility crews proved especially important in Sandy.
27
The International E-ProTM Report
• Recommendations:
States should examine with utilities how these traditional missions can be scaled up
for a catastrophic outage, and also analyze how the provision of additional support
functions, for the full range of potential black sky hazards, might assist utility
restoration operations -- especially those that can be executed by General Purpose
forces with little specialized training.
■ Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Initiatives and Recommendations
Under the National Response Framework, NGOs play vital roles in disaster
response, including sheltering, feeding operations, emergency first aid, bulk
distribution of emergency items, collecting and providing information on victims
to family members, and other operations as specified by Emergency Support
Function 6. Yet many NGOs are in the early stages of ensuring they can conduct
these operations in an extended, wide-area power outage.
• Recommendations:
28
•
NGOs should begin assessing their own resilience needs, including support
services for volunteers and coordinators, to assure their ability to sustain
communication and support functionality during a black sky hazard response
effort. These needs will typically include requirements for their own support
from State and Federal authorities.
•
In geographically limited disasters, support centers and command and control
can be established outside of the disaster zone, and casualties can be evacuated
to these unaffected areas.
•
In a widespread outage, help from the “outside” will be limited – everyone
will be on the “inside” of the affected area. NGOs will need to expand their
scope beyond a “typical” natural disaster, in which their efforts are often
executed in parallel to those of the electricity restoration efforts, to one where
those electricity restoration efforts are included in the NGO support and lifesustaining envelope.
•
In particular, as a coordinated, NGO sector-wide initiative, NGOs may wish to
develop protected, pre-planned coordination protocols with power companies,
to assure their ability to properly focus support during response to an event
that would otherwise make such coordination impossible. In addition, NGOs
should partner with utilities to develop jointly reviewed planning for how they
can best support power restoration crews in accomplishing their missions.
Executive Summary
■ Regional, Nationwide and Federal Initiatives and Recommendations
1. State-to-State Mutual Assistance: Leveraging the Emergency Management
Assistance Compact (EMAC) System for Consequence Management and
Power Restoration.
For decades, Governors, State emergency managers and the National Guard have
used EMAC to facilitate the flow of consequence management assets across State
lines. Participants in the EMAC System, including the National Association of
Emergency Managers (NEMA) that oversees its governance, are now partnering
with industry for the first time to examine how the system can be brought into more
effective alignment and mutual support with the mutual assistance agreements
used by utilities.
• Recommendation
EMAC planning needs to be supplemented so that as industry builds out its mutual
support system for National Response Events, the movement of National Guard
forces and other assets to assist nationwide restoration operations under EMAC
can be optimized accordingly.
2. Emergency Support Function 12: Partnering with the Department of Energy
for Power Restoration
Sandy surprised the Department of Defense and other Federal Departments
with the magnitude and diversity of State requests for energy-related assistance.
Now, under the leadership of the Department of Energy, which is responsible
for coordinating such Federal assistance under ESF-12, DOE and its federal
partners are making significant improvements in their mechanisms and plans to
provide energy response support, consistent with their responsibilities and core
capabilities.
• Recommendations to leverage and further develop these initiatives for
catastrophic outages:
•
Restoration planning and capability requirements.
ESF 12 is structured to assist “local, state, tribal, territorial and insular area
governments with requests for energy-related emergency response actions.”
A multi-state, long duration power outage will likely create massive requests
from civil authorities for emergency power and power restoration assistance
for critical assets and key resources within their jurisdictions, outstripping
Federal capacities to provide such support.
29
The International E-ProTM Report
DOE should continue to work with States and their utilities to develop a clearer
definition of the Requests for Assistance (RFAs) that are likely to emerge in a
catastrophic outage.
Once likely RFAs have been identified, DOE and its Federal partners
(including FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department
of Transportation, the Department of Defense, and DoD components such as
the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Defense Logistics Agency) should
assess the adequacy of current response and restoration plans and capabilities.
These Departments and Agencies should also help DOE develop plans to fill
the gaps that remain, and clarify principles to help prioritize the allocation of
Federal support when available resources fall short of requests for assistance.
•
ESF Operations in a Catastrophic Outage.
The Department of Energy should work with its partners to clarify the roles
of its Energy Response Organization, and provide for effective integration of
ESF-12 functions within the broader, FEMA-led system for Federal disaster
response.
The Department should also examine how DOE Regional Coordinators could
coordinate with FEMA’s Regional leadership for planning and preparedness,
and to provide support in restoration operations.
U.S. DoD personnel installing emergency generators after Superstorm Sandy
In addition, DOE should continue to examine how State Energy Assurance
Plans and the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) can be
leveraged to strengthen resilience against catastrophic outages.
30
Executive Summary
•
Authorities.
In a catastrophic outage, the Defense Production Act (DPA) and other
statutory and regulatory sources of authority might facilitate power restoration
assistance in novel and especially useful ways. DOE and its partners should
determine how these existing authorities might be leveraged for large-scale
restoration support, and identify shortfalls that may require legislative or
regulatory action.
•
Federal to Federal Assistance.
In Sandy, no significant requests were made by Federal Departments/Agencies
(D/As) for emergency power and restoration assistance for defense critical
infrastructure or other critical Federal facilities and missions. A multi-state,
long duration outage will likely create such RFAs, including for homeland and
national security-related facilities.
DOE should explore with its Federal partners how such RFAs should be met
in a prioritized fashion and in partnership with industry.
FEMA and the American Red Cross partner for disaster response operations
3. Integrating Power Restoration into FEMA Regional Playbooks
A terrific new opportunity is emerging to better integrate regional planning for
consequence management and power restoration against black sky hazards. The
Federal Emergency Management Agency and its State and Federal partners,
including State National Guard organizations and the Department of Defense’s
U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), are developing “playbooks” to help
plan for catastrophic events in each of the 10 FEMA regions in the United States.
Each playbook will be based on a specific scenario of special concern to the region
31
The International E-ProTM Report
in question. In FEMA Region IX in the Western United States, for example, the
playbook scenario will be based on a severe earthquake and “massive power
outage” occurring in Southern California. All these scenarios, whether they
involve manmade or natural hazards, would entail severe damage to electric grid
infrastructure and functionality.
• Recommendation
FEMA and its partners should bring industry into the development of these
playbooks, for each of the potential black sky hazards, to provide essential input on
defense power restoration support requirements, plans and operational protocols.
4. FEMA’s Power Outage Incident Annex
In mid-2014, the Federal Emergency Management Agency initiated the drafting
of a Federal Integrated Operational Plan focused on catastrophic power outages.
• Recommendation
As that planning effort goes forward, FEMA should ensure the inclusion of utilities
and other key stakeholders for consequence management and power restoration,
including NGOs and other partners who have not traditionally been involved in
restoration planning.
5. Leveraging the Department of Defense’s Complex Catastrophe Initiative
NORTHCOM and US Pacific Command (USPACOM) are now in the midst of
preparing and aligning U.S. military forces to provide defense support to civil
authorities in complex catastrophes -- that is, “any natural or man-made incident,
including cyberspace attack, power grid failure [emphasis added], and terrorism,
which results in cascading failures of multiple, interdependent, critical, lifesustaining infrastructure sectors and causes extraordinary levels of mass casualties,
damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, environment, economy,
public health, national morale, response efforts, and/or government functions.”
This planning effort has only begun to focus on how DOD military capabilities
(separate from State National Guard forces) can be brought to bear to support civil
authorities for power restoration operations, in ways that utilities will find most
essential.
• Recommendation
DOD should collaborate with industry and Federal and State partners to ensure
that restoration becomes a key focus of the Complex Catastrophe initiative.
32
Executive Summary
That focus should encompass both traditional types of DOD restoration support
(including installations for staging utility crews), and the novel missions executed
during Sandy, including air transportation of utility trucks and the very largescale provision of emergency fuel and generators for energy-related facilities and
communications nodes.
6. Exercises
A state-led exercise in June 2014 exemplifies the value of such efforts. The Central
United States Earthquake Consortium (CUSAC) member states of Alabama,
Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee will
be conducting an exercise built around a severe New Madrid fault scenario. The
scenario entailed massive damage to substations, transformers, high voltage
transmission lines and other critical power grid components. Accordingly,
industry, state and federal participants in the exercise had a strong opportunity to
refine their support protocols and identify new opportunities for progress.
• Recommendation:
A broader range of State, regional and national-level exercises should incorporate
the challenges of power restoration. Other states and regions conducting similar
catastrophic exercises should include a similar focus on power restoration.
33
The International E-ProTM Report
■ Cross-Sector Recommendations
Institutionalizing Cross-Sector Dialog and Progress
In the seminars and conferences that helped develop the recommendations summarized
above, a number of participants emphasized the need to develop a sustained
framework for collaboration, to support the implementation of the proposals, and to
build consensus on the many resilience issues that remain unresolved.
An Executive Steering Committee should be established to provide for such a
collaborative framework, to help support the work of corporate, State, Federal, NGO
and other stakeholders. Comprised of representatives from all the key resilience
stakeholders, the Committee would provide for the sharing of best practices as utilities
and their partners advance resilience against catastrophic outages, and facilitate the
sustained, cross-sector dialog and coordination that a whole-of-nation effort to build
such resilience will require. Planning is beginning now, as part of the EPRO Handbook
Project, to enable the Executive Steerng Committee to facilitate these cross-sector
efforts.
Expanding into Other Sectors and Critical Infrastructures
While power grid restoration and broad societal response and recovery operations
represent the most fundamental resilience requirement for black sky hazards, it will be
important to begin bringing other interconnected sectors and critical infrastructures
into this planning process, as soon as feasible. Communications, transportation,
natural gas and liquid fuel distribution systems, water and wastewater, food production
and distribution and the financial sector represent primary examples.
Future editions of the Handbook will advance recommendations from this process, in
coordination and collaboration with government, NGO, and corporate stakeholders.
34