The future of cybersecurity: How renewable power plant controls protect inverters from hacks and attacks

Focus:

This article discusses the vulnerabilities of utility-scale solar plants to hacking through internet-enabled smart inverters and techniques for protecting the inverters. This article mainly focuses on discussion of communications protocols and the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, and the roles they play in protecting against hacking of the inverters. Although there are a few references to inverter manufacturers improving the cybersecurity of the inverters, this article mostly discusses methods for improving cybersecurity at the power plant control level. Some industry efforts to improve cybersecurity are also discussed.

What you’ll learn:

• How to protect utility-scale power plants from cyberattacks via smart inverters

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Author & Publication:

Tom Kuster, CEO, Merit SI and Merit Controls, Solar Power World, Mar 23 2021

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