Shared Service Processes for the Information Security in the Smart Grid of the Future

With the structural change in the electrical energy supply, supply-related processes and procedures are increasingly being modified. Due to the gradual decentralization of electrical energy generation and the network expansion required for this, new requirements are being placed on the electrotechnical processes and the information and communication technology processes. A currently promising concept for solving these challenges in favor of transmission operators and distribution system operators is the integration of a so-called virtual power plant. Virtual power plants act as an integral part of the future electrical supply system between the critical infrastructure and the distribution network operators as well as transmission system operators in the field of remote monitoring and remote control of decentralized energy generation systems. With the classification of a virtual power plant as a critical infrastructure, the importance of these entities as an active member of the German electrical energy system in the interest of compliance with electrical and information technology security is explicitly emphasized. As a critical infrastructure, virtual power plants are committed to achieving a minimum level of information security. Chapter 6.1.3 of DIN EN ISO/IEC TR 27019:2020 recommends that virtual power plants maintain contacts with certain Computer Emergency Response Team organizations. However, it turns out that there is currently no organizational model for a computer emergency response team that focuses on virtual power plants in targeting its target group. Thus, the main goal of the present elaboration is the completion of a scientifically based approach, which deals with the efficiency of a possible solution to the problem of designing integrative security processes for the provision of Computer Emergency Response Team services, which is growing out of practical relevance to be solved in virtual power plants. The assumption here is that there is a need for research at this point about the challenges of the energy transition that have not yet been clearly presented.