Development of Smart Grid Testbed with Low-Cost Hardware and Software for Cybersecurity Research and Education

Smart Grid, also known as the next generation of the power grid, is considered as a power infrastructure with advanced information and communication technologies (ICT) that will enhance the efficiency and reliability of power systems. For the essential benefits that come with Smart Grid, there are also security risks due to the complexity of advanced ICT utilized in the architecture of Smart Grid to interconnect a huge number of devices and subsystems. Cybersecurity is one of the emerging major threats in Smart Grid that needs to be considered as the attack surface increased. To prevent cyber-attacks, new techniques and methods need to be evaluated in a real-world environment or in a testbed. However, the costs for setting-up Smart Grid testbed is extensive. In this article, we focused on the development of a Smart Grid testbed with a low-cost hardware and software for cybersecurity research and education. As a case study, we evaluated the testbed with most common cyber-attack such as denial of service attack. In addition, the testbed is a useful resource for cybersecurity research and education on different aspects of SCADA systems such as protocol implementation, and PLC programming.