PhD Oral Exam - Juanwei Chen, Information and Systems Engineering

When studying for a doctoral degree (PhD), candidates submit a thesis that provides a critical review of the current state of knowledge of the thesis subject as well as the student’s own contributions to the subject. The distinguishing criterion of doctoral graduate research is a significant and original contribution to knowledge.

Once accepted, the candidate presents the thesis orally. This oral exam is open to the public.

Abstract

Cybersecurity of Virtual Power Plants in the Smart Grid Abstract Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) are increasingly deployed worldwide to improve the sustainability, efficiency, and resilience of modern power systems. To coordinate geographically dispersed DERs, Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) have emerged as a key aggregation platform, enabling participation in energy markets and grid support services. However, the extensive communication and data exchange between VPP control centers and DERs significantly expand the attack surface of power systems. Moreover, DERs are often installed beyond traditional utility security perimeters, such as residential, commercial, and industrial sites, making them more exposed to cyber threats and increasing the complexity of cybersecurity management. This thesis investigates the cyber threats introduced by VPP-enabled DER aggregation and develops cyber-physical defense mechanisms to enhance VPP cybersecurity and resilience. First, an informed Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack model is proposed to quantify vulnerabilities arising from DER aggregation through VPPs. Second, a software-defined networking (SDN)-enabled cyber-physical coordinated control framework is developed to improve the resilience of VPP voltage support services under DoS attacks through joint communication reconfiguration and physical control adaptation. Third, a large language model (LLM)-enabled cyber-physical attack progression reasoning and prioritization framework is proposed to integrate operational conditions, cyber-network status, and cybersecurity intelligence for attack progression inference and prioritization, thereby supporting cybersecurity decision-making. Collectively, the proposed frameworks advance the understanding of VPP cybersecurity risks and provide a foundation for cybersecurity management of DER-intensive power systems.