ToSG 2014 - The First International Workshop on Trustworthiness of Smart Grids (ToSG 2014)

Large power grids are extremely complex systems. Dealing with highly dynamic phenomena in protection and control, algorithms require long-distance, high-volume and highly reliable data communications. However, it is widely agreed that electric grids are getting increasingly stressed each year due to surging demand and inadequate transmission growth. At the same time, the centralized generation model is increasingly being extended by the distributed producer-consumer Smart Grid model that adds even more demands on communication (both for control and pricing reasons) and trustworthiness (dependability, security, privacy, performance guarantees...) of the overall grid infrastructure. As conventional proprietary communication links get augmented by ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) based Internet overlays, P2P and other techniques in the Smart Grid, the trustworthiness links across classical power aspects (power community) and computing/communication aspects (DSN community) need to be fundamentally re-thought to provide for improved overall trustworthiness of the Smart Grid. Investigating this synergy, new techniques and challenges forms the premise of the ToSG workshop.
The goal of this workshop (and successors) is to provide a much better understanding of dependability/security issues involved with the Smart Grids' dependency on ICT and to help stimulate research to improve grid trustworthiness. A targeted goal of the workshop will be to facilitate research matchmaking between the electric power researchers and dependable computing communities. We thus hope to create an interdisciplinary community that will bear fruit well past the end of this first workshop.
Topics of Interest
The workshop addresses topics including, but not limited to, the following:
Characterization of trustworthiness (dependability, security, performance thresholds...) in the Smart Grid that bridge the requirements (control and ICT) and terminologies (fault, failures, anomalies, disruptions, attacks,...) across the Power and ICT areas.
Architectures and techniques for enhanced grid ICT trustworthiness - computing and communication models and mechanisms for functionality, diagnosis, recovery etc
Modeling + assessment of Smart Grid ICT
Simulation and/or emulation of Smart Grid and ICT infrastructures together
Testing/Validation of Smart Grid ICT components and end-to-end infrastructures
Threat analysis of Smart Grid ICT and its impact on power stability
New and emerging Smart Grid applications with challenging requirements for communication, computation, or coordination
Policy management and regulatory issues.
Note: we are seeking papers that are truly interdisciplinary between dependable computing and power. Thus, papers that are trivial or superficial on either the power or dependable computing sides will be downgraded in the reviewing process.