The UK needs to build new levels of resilience and
reliability into its electricity networks, including protection
against hackers, to support the country’s increasingly digital
infrastructure, according to a new report by the Institution of
Mechanical Engineers.
The Smart Cities: Technology Friend or
Foe? report outlines how in our increasingly digital
age, any power cuts could jeopardise our communications,
transport, security surveillance, heating, cooling, lighting,
water, food supplies and, in an increasingly cashless world,
trading.
According to the report, energy companies globally
experience about 66 million cyber security events annually, which
is 25% more than typical in other industries, and about 90% of
published vulnerabilities are medium to high risk.
The Institution is calling on UK Government to urgently
look at the demand and reliability of power infrastructure and
the requirements of digitally integrated cities.
Dr Colin Brown, Director at the Institution of Mechanical
of Engineers, said:
“As we become more reliant on digital infrastructure, we
are becoming more dependent on our electricity network. This
means it has never been more important to ensure we have secure
and reliable electricity supplies, robust enough to withstand
threats from potential hackers and resilient to our changing
climate.
“We have already seen major hacks of power plants and
electricity networks in USA in 2003, when a nuclear power plant
in Ohio was disabled by hackers, and more recently in 2015 in the
Ukraine where a cyber-attack caused a grid outage which affected
225,000 people. On a grand scale hacks on our electricity
networks could lead to chaos and looting of the sort we saw from
natural causes in Texas and Florida in the aftermath of
Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
“In order to keep critical infrastructure, transport,
communications, security surveillance and working, we need an
electricity system which in the future will continue to be
reliable 24 hours, 365 days a year. In the coming years, even
relatively short interruptions to supply will potentially lead to
substantial economic and social problems.”
Smart cities: Technology Friend or
Foe? recommends three priority areas for action:
-
UK Government includes the electricity system
requirements of digitally integrated smart cities, in terms of
both demand and reliability, in the planning of pathways to the
nation’s future power infrastructure.
-
City authorities focus more on collaborative working and
sharing smart city learning across networks of cities, and
engage with people’s concerns regarding equality of
access.
-
The education profession acknowledges the new skill sets
needed for living and working in a digitally-enabled urbanised
society, and radically reconfigures education and training to
be fit for purpose in a 21st-century smart city future
To read the report, click on the link at the top of this
email.
