Summary
Offshore wind energy facilities are deployed as part of national energy transition strategies, introducing complex protection, automation, and control (PAC) systems distributed across offshore and onshore environments. These systems rely on extensive digital communication and remote connectivity, which significantly expand the cybersecurity attack surface and introduce new operational risks. In offshore environments, limited physical access, high availability requirements, and reliance on wide-area communications necessitate a cybersecurity approach that is embedded into system design rather than applied retrospectively.
Read more Read lessThis paper presents a cybersecurity design approach for offshore wind energy facilities based on the principles of the IEC 62443 standard series. The proposed methodology focuses on architectural decisions that balance cybersecurity, availability, and deterministic performance, with particular emphasis on the application of zones and conduits, risk-based assignment of target security levels, and defense-in-depth.
Key design considerations include redundancy and availability strategies, secure remote access, demilitarized zone (DMZ) design, and system hardening, all tailored to the practical constraints of offshore deployment. The design approach presented aims to assist utilities and developers in engineering cybersecure offshore wind energy facilities that support long-term reliability, regulatory compliance, and secure integration with modern power systems.
Additional informations
| Publication type | Session Materials |
|---|---|
| Reference | D2_10677_2026 |
| Publication year | |
| Publisher | CIGRE |
| Country | United States of America |
| Study committees | |
| File size | 686 KB |
| Price for non member | 30 € |
| Price for member | 30 € |
Authors
DEARIEN Jason - Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc., United States of America; DAYABHAI Sagar - Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories UK, Limited, United Kingdom
Keywords
