Power grid security

Detecting Cybersecurity Threats by Taking the Grid's Pulse

Power quality expert Alex McEachern set out to build an advanced power sensor for utility distribution grids, and accidentally produced a promising tool to protect power grids from cyber attack. The equipment–developed by McEachern and collaborators at the University of California Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory—is part of the starter pack for military installations competing in a $77 million power grid cyber security R&D contest that DARPA is kicking off next month. 

“What we’re trying to do is to take the most sensitive instruments that have ever been made for looking at the grid, and looking at what they might be able to see from inside military bases,” says McEachern, who is president of Alameda, Calif.-based power quality firm Power Standards Lab.