Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

From the moment we wake up until we go back to sleep, virtually everything we do requires electricity. Healthcare facilities, financial institutions, data centers, emergency centers and critical public and private organizations all heavily depend on electricity. The power is delivered by an electrical grid that crisscrosses every city and state with thousands of miles of high-voltage transmission lines. Implementing a power protection scheme capable of covering this massive infrastructure is difficult at best, but very necessary.

Power outages can be caused by anything that gets in the way of these transmission lines, resulting in outages that can last hours depending on the damage. With so many random possibilities, utility companies have power protection policies designed primarily to identify problem areas as soon as possible. Identifying the source of the problem quickly allows them to fix the damage even in the most remote areas.

A list created by Eaton Corporation (News - Alert), a power management company, illustrates the vulnerability of power lines. The list is made up of 11 of the strangest things that caused power outages in 2012. After going through the list, it becomes very clear that even the most meticulous power protection scheme will encounter random and unexpected events that could potentially cause a power outage.

When the Space Shuttle Endeavor was being transported through the streets of Southern California to the California Science Center, power authorities had to shut down power for four hours. Although seeing the space shuttle on California streets is an odd occurrence, the shutdown was a controlled event. However, the other 10 oddities on the list couldn't have been predicted by anyone.

Wildlife of every variety seems to be the biggest cause of damage to the electrical grid system, highlighting the fact that it is almost impossible to have a power protection plan that will protect the lines from being damaged. Squirrels, seagulls, snakes, turkeys and even termites have interrupted power for hours on end for thousands of customers from Kalamazoo to Taiwan.

Interruptions caused by people includes someone throwing a bicycle chain into a utility equipment in Mountain View, Calif., which resulted in 1,500 customers losing power and a  fleeing felon in Wyoming running into a utility pole and causing a big power outage for 4,000 customers.

The most publicized power outage took place at Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans, delaying the game for 34 minutes when an electrical relay device, which is designed to prevent outages, caused the damage.

In today's power infrastructure where machine to machine (M2M) communications provide utility companies with 24/7 access to the power lines and everything is connected, a different power protection scheme has to be implemented. Although utilities have two networks – a production network and the corporate network – creating an air gap to limit their vulnerability to cyber attacks, the risk is still there.

Security experts in any field will tell you there's no such thing as foolproof security; this is an undeniable fact. The best solution is having contingency controls in place to minimize the damage and fix the problem as soon as possible, whether it is related to power protection or cyber security.