Cybersecurity Curricula Recommendations for Smart Grids Erasmus Project

Project Title

Cybersecurity Curricula Recommendations for Smart Grids

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Energy and resources; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Cybersecurity of European energy systems is threatened due to major trends in our energy systems: First, taken integration of markets and coordination needs, Europe is aiming for a fully integrated internal energy market, where real-time markets will function with high volumes. This will entail to cross-border coordination and increased data exchange, when functioning of new types of actors (e.g., prosumers) needs to be managed. This will be a challenge for security as continuous security analyses are required. Second, there is a movement towards decentralized renewable energy production. In decentralized energy systems, the distribution systems will have a critical role with respect of security. Third, taken the application of digitized solutions in energy systems, the issue is that components of electricity grids such as electricity generators and distribution networks to smart meters in homes will be more and more connected on the Internet-of-Things and all these devices can be attacked. As energy systems will adopt emerging information technologies such as mobile Internet, cloud computing attackers have new attack surfaces to exploit. Cyber criminals have become aware of this and there has been a massive increase in the number of successful cyber attacks. Especially electricity networks such as smart grids interconnect vast amount of users and energy transmission systems. Therefore, single disturbance may propagate widespread negative effects. To summarize, we are proceeding to the age of the smart, decentralized, and interconnected energy system with great benefits and possibilities for new energy services but with new problems with respect of cybersecurity. Currently, we have experienced increased negative effects of cyber crimes in energy systems as well as society and the energy industry suffers from a lack of cybersecurity professionals.

The objectives of this project are (i) higher education study programs in smart grids adopt cybersecurity learning outcomes and (ii) organizations dealing with smart grids train their professionals in cybersecurity issues.

The project is lead by University of Vaasa (UVA), Finland, and there are four partners: Riga Technical University (RTU), Latvia, University of Oldenburg (UOL), Germany, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece, and MAC-Team, Belgium.

All participating universities have either smart grids or electrical engineering research and education with laboratories and research collaboration with local and global industries. UVA, UOL and NTUA have developed competencies in the education and research on smart grids. RTU has prior experience on cybersecurity education from viewpoints of computer science and electrical engineering and this complements the competencies of other universities. In addition, the following associate partners the universities have strong collaborations (e.g., research projects) will contribute in the development of intellectual outputs: HEDNO and EWE NETZ (distribution system operators in Greece and Germany, respectively), DERLab (assoc. of leading labs and research institutes in the field of distributed energy resources), ABB (multinational electrical power technology supplier), BTC AG and PSI AG (software providers for power systems), CoEN Collective Energy Cooperative (energy community of citizens in Greece), and the University of Applied Sciences Bremerhaven (Institute for IT Security, starting from July 2020).

To answer to the need for cybersecurity professionals in smart grids, we have divided the project to eight WPs. We review the state of the art, trends and skill gaps in cybersecurity in smart grids and infer insights for training and education (WP1). Based on these insights, we develop a roadmap that will consider how stakeholders such as industry, research and teaching institutions and civil society should collaborate to foster cyber security education and training in smart grids (WP2). We will also provide one technological solution, real-time simulator, and show how it can effectively be used in education. For that purpose we will design and test a cybersecurity course based on real-time simulation of a part of the energy chain (WP3). Finally, we will benchmark the existing curricula recommendations, and use the insights from earlier WPs to design curricula recommendations for cybersecurity in smart grids (WP4). The four mentioned WPs are accompanied by WPs for dissemination, sustainability and exploitation, coordination and management, and quality management. The project aims to impact European universities and their study programs to develop cybersecurity programs with the recommendations project offers. For the firms, we offer real-time simulation training and guidelines how to support training in firms. We envisage with these activities that smart grid operators are able to protect grids from cyberattacks and therefore our citizens and SMEs connected to the grid would be safe from cyberattacks.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 273935 Eur

Project Coordinator

VAASAN YLIOPISTO & Country: FI

Project Partners

• MAC-Team aisbl
• CARL VON OSSIETZKY UNIVERSITAET OLDENBURG
• NATIONAL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS – NTUA
• RIGAS TEHNISKA UNIVERSITATE