Grids & Integration

Germany’s Federal Network Agency will use a new, structured framework developed by Fraunhofer IOSB-AST to classify cybersecurity incidents in the energy sector. The methodology enables comprehensive risk assessments, from initial reports to systemic and economic impacts, supporting consistent evaluation across the entire energy value chain.

Accelerating energy transitions in major economies can create positive spillover effects worldwide, even amid geopolitical tensions, with North America and the Eurozone boosting progress in other regions.

Spain’s grid operator Red Eléctrica and regulator CNMC have launched real-time voltage control services, allowing renewable energy installations to provide dynamic grid support under a new regulatory framework.

Researchers found that widely deployed smart meters pose a “massive” cybersecurity risk, potentially enabling data manipulation, energy theft, and service disruption. They propose a new detection method using state estimation and statistical boundaries to more accurately identify cyberattacks, outperforming traditional techniques despite higher computational demands.

Tokyo’s grid has joined every other transmission system operator area in Japan in experiencing economic curtailment, as solar output growth outpaces the flexibility of the country’s largest regional power market.

Data centers are using batteries to run more AI on the same grid connection.

In an interview with pv magazine, Jay Johnson, the CTO of US-based cybersecurity firm DERSec, explains that PV systems face cybersecurity risks that extend far beyond inverters, as demonstrated by a December attack on Polish solar plants where wiper malware targeted substation equipment rather than the inverters themselves. Vulnerabilities often lie in backhaul communication channels like APIs and mobile apps, making layered defenses, network segmentation, and vigilant monitoring essential to safeguard distributed energy resources.

Spain’s Fundación Ciudad de la Energía (Ciuden), a government energy research foundation, has completed operational testing of a 1 MW/8 MWh vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) system at its Cubillos del Sil technology center, which it says is the largest vanadium flow battery in Europe dedicated to applied research.

In an interview with pv magazine, cybersecurity expert Mohammad Al Faruque explains how seemingly simple sensors in PV systems and other energy systems are surprisingly vulnerable to magnetic, electrical, and acoustic perturbations, which can remotely influence control systems without physical access. Protecting these sensors requires both strict physical security and the development of hardened, interference-resistant technology to safeguard critical infrastructure.

The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (Entso-E) has published its final root cause report on the April 28, 2025, blackout in Spain and Portugal, finding failures across grid operations, generation, and regulations, and issuing 22 recommendations to strengthen European grid resilience.