Protecting the Grid from Terrorism

The bulk power transmission system is vulnerable to physical attack by a small number of well-informed terrorists, which could result in a widespread outage lasting months. Cyber attacks also could cause serious blackouts. Strategies and technologies exist to minimize damage, assure graceful degradation, expedite restoration and ensure the continued provision of critical social services, whether such outages result from terrorism or natural events. R&D is vital for reducing the costs and improving the performance of these technologies.