Infrastructure protectionFormer FERC chair calls for mandatory security standards for high-voltage substations

Jon Wellinghoff, the former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), is leading a crusade to improve physical security around the nation’s electrical grid.

In April 2013, snipers attacked a Silicon Valley power substation in what Wellinghoff called a “very well planned, coordinated and executed attack on a major piece of our electric grid infrastructure” (see “Attack on California power station heightens concerns about grid security,” HSNW, 7 February 2014). Wellinghoff says the attack may have been a test run for a larger strike, possibly by terrorists. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) considers the incident an act of vandalism, with no arrests made so far. FBI spokesman Peter Lee in San Francisco said, “There is no nexus to terrorism at this time.”

CNN reports that Wellinghoff, who argues that security at electrical grid facilities is insufficient, is urging Congress to give federal agencies the authority to demand improved security around electrical substations. “We need to have a national coordinated plan, and we have to have a federal agency that is in charge,” Wellinghoff said.

Representative Henry Waxman (D-California), the ranking member of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, talked about the attack in a December 2013 hearing. “Just this April, there was an actual attack on our electricity infrastructure. This was an unprecedented and sophisticated attack on an electric grid substation with military-style weapons. Communications were disrupted. The attack inflicted substantial damage. It took weeks to replace the damaged parts. The nation’s critical infrastructure and defense installations simply cannot function without electricity. Yet it is clear that the electric grid is not adequately protected from physical or cyberattacks.”

In 2010, the U.S. House passed the GRID Act to empower the FERC to address threats to the nation’s power grid, but the Senate did not act on the proposal.

In the 16 April 2013 attack on the San Jose substation, snipers fired about 150 rounds from assault rifles and damaged seventeen of the substation’s twenty-three transformers. Workers re-routed power to prevent a blackout in Silicon Valley. investigtors also discovered an AT&T fiber optic cable cut in an underground vault, causing a phone blackout.

A few months later, there were attacks on power lines and grid infrastructure in Arkansas,  causing power outages and millions of dollars in damage.

Scott Aaronson, senior director of national security at the Edison Electric Institute, a utility industry research and advocacy body, said that publicizing sensitive information about critical infrastructure protection is a risk to public safety.

 Wellinghoff recommends that utilities enact low-cost improvements to secure their perimeters. “This isn’t about this substation or this organized attack,” Wellinghoff said of the California incident. “This is more about the larger issue of physical security of these high-voltage substations nationwide and the need to ensure that some defensive measures start to be put in place.”