Risk of Jamming Attacks on a Virtual Power Plant with Multiple Distributed Generators

Consensus control has recently been employed to regulate active power output of distributed generators (DGs) of a virtual power plant. However, such networked control systems, integrating information and wireless communication technologies, are subject to cyberattacks. This paper investigates the risk of jamming attacks on the coordination of DGs in a distribution network. A binary-valued stochastic process is employed to model packet losses caused by jamming attacks and nonmalicious communication failures. Using an attack rate to characterize the strategy of an attacker, the proposed method highlights the vulnerability of the cooperative control of DGs subject to cyberattacks. Furthermore, a probabilistic instability analysis provides the conditions under which jamming attacks can prevent active power outputs of DGs from reaching a consensus to track a dispatch command. Accordingly, this paper shows how an attacker might launch malicious attacks to impair consensus-based control of DGs so that energy companies can take precautions. Finally, the theoretical results are verified on the IEEE 34-node test feeder under two different attack strategies.