What is Intelligent Electronic Device (IED)

In this chapter, we present the justification and a feasibility study of applying the Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) technology to electric power grid health monitoring. We propose a set of BFT mechanisms needed to handle the PMU data reporting and control commands issuing to the IEDs. We report an empirical study to assess the feasibility of using the BFT technology for reliable and secure electric power grid health monitoring and control. We show that under the LAN environment, the overhead and jitter introduced by the BFT mechanisms are negligible, and consequently, Byzantine fault tolerance could readily be used to improve the security and reliability of electric power grid monitoring and control while meeting the stringent real-time communication requirement for SCADA operations.