Virtualization for performance guarantees of state estimation in cyber-physical energy systems

The strong interdependence between power systems and information and communication technologies (ICT) makes cyber-physical energy systems susceptible to new disturbances. State estimation (SE) is a vital part of energy management systems, for several monitoring, management, and control services. Failure of SE service leads to loss of situational awareness, which in turn has a detrimental impact on the grid operation. Therefore, it is essential to maintain the performance of SE service. Modern technologies such as virtualization are key drivers to provide the flexibility to reallocate, reconfigure, and manage services as a countermeasure to mitigate the impact of disturbances. This paper introduces the virtualization of SE service as a potential approach to maintain its performance in the case of disturbances. Following a review of existing approaches for maintaining the performance of the SE service, a description of the proposed approach is provided. The benefits of virtualization of SE service are demonstrated via a simulation test platform with an ICT-enriched CIGRE MV benchmark grid. © 2022, The Author(s).