Protecting the Real Grid

The real “grid” in the United States – the interconnection of the various sources of electricity with the ultimate consumer – is in reality a number of grids connecting thirteen groups of utilities in the United States with five area groups in Canada.

All of these energy sources are divided into three major groups: The Eastern Interconnect (EI), the Western Interconnect (WI) and the Energy Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).
The WI is comprised of the eleven western states as a single group plus 2 western Canadian Provinces.

The EI is made up of the 37 “eastern” states divided into eleven individual groups of three or four states each and 5 Canadian “eastern” Provinces.

ERCOT covers approximately 70% of the state of Texas.

All of these energy production operations are connected to transmission systems (and ISOs) that deliver power from points of generation to end user. Contrary to popular belief however, there is no direct line from, say New York to California: a kilowatt-hour sent on that path would have to pass through at least five American groups or three Canadian groups to get to the WI where California is located.

There are a number of transmission companies that provide the pathways for power delivery. According to industry experts, each transmission company manages its own systems, and has its own tools for management. Individually they are vulnerable and each one could potentially impact its upstream or downstream neighbors (see 1965 and 2003 “Blackouts”) but there is no single system that could be hacked in order to shut down all the grids at once. To do that, hackers would have to hit a number of systems at the same time.

As we pointed out in our previous blog, “The Nitty Gritty of the Grid” the many North American blackouts of the past 20 years have needed no help from hackers. But we do know that the government, and the Supreme Court, are taking strong action to better control and cleanse the entire use of energy in the United States.

Oh, and let’s not forget where hacking was invented. We have highly detailed charts of the Chinese, Russian, Korea – and the rest of the worlds – grid systems with their interconnections and distributions.