False Data Injection Attacks on Hybrid AC/HVDC Interconnected Systems With Virtual Inertia—Vulnerability, Impact and Detection

Power systems are moving towards hybrid AC/DC grids with the integration of HVDC links, renewable resources and energy storage modules. The load frequency control (LFC) of tomorrow has to consider the complex interactions between these components. Meanwhile, more attention should be paid to cyber security concerns as the LFC loop highly depends on data communications which may be exposed to cyber attacks. In this regard, this article aims to analyze the false data injection (FDI) attacks on the AC/DC interconnected LFC system with inertia emulation and develop advanced diagnosis tools to reveal their occurrence. We build an optimization-based framework for the purpose of vulnerability analysis. Considering the attack impact on frequency stability, it is shown that the multi-area LFC system with parallel AC/DC links and emulated inertia by storage devices is more vulnerable to FDI attacks, compared to the one without inertia emulation and the normal AC system. We then propose a detection approach to detect and isolate each FDI intrusion with a sufficient fast response, and even recover the attack value. In addition to theoretical results, the effectiveness of the proposed method is validated through simulations on the two-area AC/DC interconnected LFC system with inertia emulation capabilities.