The COVID-19 experience which could potentially compromise the continuity of the ordinary EPES operation in the first months of 2020, has increased the awareness of people who must be able to carry out their ordinary, and not only, activities by remote, without loosing the efficiency requested for the management of strategical energy infrastructures.

Trust, but verify

Industrial automation and control systems (IACS) in the energy infrastructure (e.g. SCADA) are vulnerable to cyber security incidents. Digitalization, increased integration, and convergence of Information Technology and Operational Technology (IT & OT) are opening new avenues for cyber-attacks.

Today, technologies make many aspects of our lives interconnected and interdependent. In this scenario, the development of new technological solutions should consist not only in the analysis of the best technical components, but also in the understanding of the ethics, regulatory, and security contexts in which the solution will be implemented. By adhering to this dual approach, researchers can prove that technological progress occurs in harmony with other instances of human life.

BTC Company is one of the leading commercial property development companies in the region. Under the brand name BTC City, it operates one of the largest business, shopping, entertainment, recreational, and cultural centres in Europe, located in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. The BTC Company also runs a logistics service unit, which holds the leading market position in FMCG logistics in Slovenia.

In the development of power systems, the focus of communication and security has almost always been on network reliability. Safety has always taken precedence over security, and in a sense, it still does. Until recently, communication has been considered a key enabler for the grid. However, with smart grids, the information infrastructure supporting the monitoring and management activities of the power system has become an important, if not the most important, part of a reliable power system.

Wind-turbine systems are considered among the most complex Cyber-Physical infrastructures causing huge cascading effects to other Critical Energy Infrastructures (CEIs), such as Electrical Power and Energy Systems (EPES), communications, transportation, industry and finance. Wind turbines are mainly composed of condition monitoring and operational data (i.e. Supervisory Command and Data Acquisition-SCADA), including air-temperature, air-pressure, voltage and power with multiple types of parameters and periodic characteristics.

In Italy, as in most parts of Europe, the measures to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has had relevant impacts in several sectors, last but not the least the electricity one. The changes in day-to-day routine has affected the national energy demand: from the 11th of March to the 8th of May in Italy the electricity demand was dropped by -16%, with a decrease of about 7.7 TWh in comparison with the same period in 2019 (source TERNA, see figure).