The SPARKS project has a strong remit to engage with stakeholders in the smart grid area, in order to collect important requirements and disseminate the project’s outcomes. This was the purpose of the 1st SPARKS stakeholder workshop, which tool place at Smart Grids Week on the 20th May, 2014 at the premises of Energie Steiermark in Graz, Austria. The workshop was attended by approximately twenty people, with stakeholders present from a number of areas, including Distribution System Operators (DSOs), equipment and hardware vendors, solutions providers, research institutes and policy makers. At the workshop, participants in the SPARKS consortium presented the activities that are to be carried out in the project to members of the SPARKS stakeholder group.
Based on the discussions that were held, it was clear to see the importance of the different research activities the SPARKS project is investigating, and that much work still needs to be done to realise a secure and resilient smart grid. Moving forward, the SPARKS project will take on board the issues that were raised when shaping its research direction. The next stakeholder workshop is scheduled to take place in the Spring of 2015. Details regarding this follow-up workshop will be advertised, in due course.
A summary of the presentations that were given on the day, along with a brief outline of the outcomes of the discussions are available for download. To get a brief overview of the workshop, please take a look at the blog entry. Furthermore, the presentations that were given by members of the SPARKS consortium can be downloaded from the programme overview, shown below.
- An introduction to the SPARKS project
Dr Paul Smith, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology - Smart grid security architectures and standards
Dr Lucie Langer, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology - Smart grid security analysis
Dr Paul Smith, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology - Intrusion detection for SCADA systems
Dr Kieran McLaughlin, Queen’s University Belfast (CSIT) - Smart meter (gateway) authentication and key management using hardware PUFs
Dr Martin Hutle, Fraunhofer AISEC - Smart grid security information analytics
Dr Robert W. Griffin, RSA an EMC Company - Cyber-attack resilient control systems
Mr André Teixeira, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) - Smart grid security legal, economic and social issues
Dr Michael Schmidthaler, Energy Institute at the J. Kepler University Linz - SPARKS demonstration activities
Dr Friederich Kupzog, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology
If you are interested in participating in the next SPARKS stakeholder workshop and becoming a member of the SPARKS stakeholder group, then please do get in touch.