Jim Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy calls the grid ‘The Great Enabler’ of our time because of everything it brings to life – in our daily personal lives as well as our businesses. It connects our great society. The National Academy of Engineering refers to ‘The Grid’ as the single most important invention of the 20th century. And yet, our North American critical infrastructure is under attack every day. A general lack of basic physical security at many facilities means that anyone with intent could do serious damage – whether it’s copper theft, vandalism or planned sabotage. And this is what keeps most energy executives up at night.

Although the federal government regulates many utilities and energy companies, a fairly large percentage of them are not. In the United States for example, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is a federal government agency that does not oversee the nearly 90 percent of utilities that are privately held or regulated by state governments. It’s up to each of these utilities to determine the best strategy to secure their substations, electrical grids and power plants.

The challenge is of course, that physical perimeter security is often both complex and expensive. And it’s not just operational risks and costs that need to be considered, but the magnitude of a potential event that affects the entire community – from hospitals to emergency responders to the regular citizen. For this reason, an effective perimeter security strategy requires that a system can detect, identify and prevent threats and be aware 24/7/365.

Sense of Urgency
The electrical utility industry has not historically put much effort toward securing its substations. Facilities are often dispersed geographically and located in remote areas away from the beaten path. They often don’t have on-site personnel and have few routine maintenance visits. With resources and budgets at a premium, physical perimeter security just hasn’t been a top priority despite the potential impact of a compromised facility.

But with the five hundred percent increase in the price of copper over the past ten years, combined with increased attention to the environment and public policy, unwanted intrusions are on the rise. The growing number of accounts of unlawful intrusion, copper theft, and vandalism at utilities is a bit un-nerving. Recent accounts of vandalism at renewable energy projects in California and copper theft at substations in the mid-west resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages – in water and oil spills, copper wire & equipment replacement, and outages. In 2011, multiple vandalism attempts against a wind project in the California desert cost more than a half million dollars in damages alone.

Clearly, the traditional approach of restricting access and entry to facilities using gates, fences and signs isn’t enough. More and more electrical utilities and energy companies are integrating advanced analytics, professional monitoring and HD video surveillance to detect suspicious activity and keep the bad guys out.

Perimeter Solution Strategies

• Detect intruders and suspicious activity using HD surveillance cameras, analytics, and access controls
• Identify likely targets of vandalism and theft – often in remote areas, unattended facilities and infrastructure that has easy access to metal – copper in particular
• Secure perimeters with fences, guards, monitoring, motion detectors, and cameras
• Understand existing IT networks and impact new systems will have on the network
• Deploy a scalable, actionable system that easily integrates with existing systems
• Require real-time event detection, tracking and notifications so personnel can focus attention and respond in time
• Combine known technologies into a single system – integrating IP cameras with analytics, professional monitoring services, access control, and mobile monitoring

What is Physical Perimeter Security?
A great perimeter security strategy does three things really well:

1. Detect
2. Identify
3. Prevent

In a nutshell, it keeps intruders out and secures the critical infrastructure that people rely on. It will also help minimize or eliminate safety concerns for both the perpetrator and employees – high-voltage copper can kill – as well as help control operational impact and manage overall risk. That sounds like a lot – and it is. Luckily there are tools readily available to help optimize physical perimeter security.

Five Essential Elements of Perimeter Security

1. Physical Presence: Establish a perimeter around the facility with fences, warning signs, gates and on-site security guards. Most facilities have this level of physical protection today.
    
2. Virtual Presence (video surveillance): Adding video surveillance around the perimeter is essential. Video surveillance provides security managers not only with a method to record and review video for evidence but also a means to detect, track and analyze events. Analytics are what drive efficient video streaming and live event notifications.
    
3. Perimeter Detection: As a complement to fences and signs, motion sensors, HD surveillance cameras and analytics alert personnel to things that shouldn’t be there. Advanced analytics provide an extra level of detection – detecting events as they occur and notifying responders when those events are important.
    
4. Notifications: Security personnel are more effective when they receive live event notifications of suspicious activity. Additionally, the use of lights, alarms and audio provide an extra level of security, letting intruders know they have been detected.
    
5. Monitoring: Remote video monitoring provides anytime/ anywhere verification and response. 24/7 off-site professional monitoring companies provide timely response and notification to responders.

Electrical substations, energy utilities, oil & gas pipelines, water treatment plants, and renewable energy projects are subject to tremendous risk – not only for copper theft and minor acts of vandalism, but planned terrorist attacks. Unfortunately, securing these assets can be very difficult. They are often located in remote areas with harsh conditions such as desert and tundra and are often dispersed throughout a large geographical area.

One of the most reliable and accurate solutions to monitoring and preventing vandalism and attacks is the deployment of flexible, easy to use intelligent video surveillance systems. Advanced pattern-based analytics deliver instant event notifications to desktop or mobile devices to alert designated personnel of events in progress. Fewer false alarms and real-time event detection keep security personnel focused on situations that matter.

Physical Perimeter Security Checklist

• Superior detection accuracy. Advanced analytics self-learn and become more precise and accurate over time. Advanced analytics significantly reduce false alarms and accurately differentiate legitimate threats from benign scene activity. The system sees and learns like humans so security personnel can focus their attention on what really matters. Security is more effective and intruders are deterred.
• Eyes on multiple sites. Multiple sites are seamlessly monitored 27/7/365. Remote guards and central monitoring stations are supported with instant event notifications and live video verification.
• No bandwidth bottlenecks. Zero bandwidth recording means there’s no impact on the existing network. Months of HD video can be stored on the device. Solutions scale easily from 1 to 1000 cameras.
• Infrastructure friendly. Real-time analytics on the edge enable easy deployment over cellular networks
• Early identification and notification. Advanced algorithms, pattern analysis and a robust set of definable rules help isolate areas of concern

An Electric Co-Op Success Story
Gardner Energy, an electric co-op in Gardner, Kansas chose VideoIQ advanced analytics and edge storage to help mitigate loss and manage liability. It was on-going theft and vandalism at their three substations that drove the utility to change its approach to perimeter security. Their perimeter security goal was to detect, identify and prevent intruders from entering their substations.
The biggest drivers for Gardner in choosing this approach to perimeter security were the integrated advanced analytics, on-board edge storage in every HD camera and appliance and monitoring options. Storage at the edge of the network eliminated bandwidth concerns for the utility. With a tight budget and no trained security personnel, Gardner needed a system that was accurate, reliable and easy to use. The VideoIQ system also does more than just record incidents after the fact; it alerts operators as soon as an intruder comes on site, so personnel can focus their attention on what matters. The advanced analytics accurately track people walking around the field of coverage and send instant alerts to monitoring personnel. Since the installation, there have been no incidents of vandalism or theft.

The perimeter security solution investment was about one third the cost of a full-time guard service, and it provides 24/7/365 protection without hiring extra personnel, investing in additional IT infrastructure or needing additional video storage devices.

GARDNER PERIMETER SECURITY BENEFITS
Advanced Analytics
The unique combination of pattern analysis, custom rules and auto-learning technology delivers superior detection accuracy. Self-learning analytics classify people and vehicles while eliminating benign or irrelevant scene activity from animals, weather, solar glare and debris.

Mobile Access & Instant Event Notifications
Monitor the security system anytime and anywhere with instant notifications, event verification, audio talk-down and immediate response to threats. Mobile monitoring and instant event notifications enable real-time prevention 24/7/365 awareness.

Edge Storage
Intelligent edge storage has the capacity to stream in high definition only events important to the end-user as they occur and record activity continuously without impacting network infrastructure. Bandwidth consumption is reduced by 90 percent, centralized storage is unnecessary, and it’s easy to add systems to remote locations.

Scalable
As an all-in-one device, VideoIQ solutions can simply scale from one to one thousand plus devices. Our advanced analytics manage storage and bandwidth requirements, so it’s easy to add new devices without impacting infrastructure, video quality (recorded or streamed) or analytics capabilities.

Physical Perimeter Security is Important
The energy and electric utility sectors are dynamic and the security challenges that come with it are always changing. Cyber-attacks are one of the most talked about national security threats of our time – and for good reason. But it’s not the only threat that should concern the utility sector.

Remote facilities and substations are a significant part of our energy infrastructure. Out of site shouldn’t mean out of mind. If you can see it, you can better manage it. With today’s advanced technologies in video surveillance, monitoring and analytics, remote substations and dispersed facilities can have an optimal physical security solution – one that delivers accurate and live event notifications straight to responders via any device, months of recorded and searchable video and superior event detection with fewer false alarms. Real-time physical security of remote substations and pipelines is possible.

All energy companies are important – whether it’s the small energy co-op in Kansas or the global Fortune 50 oil & gas company. As the National Research Council* (NRC) report and many energy experts say, ‘energy facilities are vulnerable to disgruntled people – not to mention coordinated terrorist attacks.’ The potential impact breached facilities can have on communities makes investigating a real-time prevention solution worth it.

About the Author

Mahesh Saptharishi was part of the Werner H. Kirsten internship program at the National Cancer Institute where his work focused on immunology. The amazingly adaptive nature of the immune system inspired him to start thinking about mathematical models of learning. He went on to get his doctorate at Carnegie Mellon University in machine learning while working with robots (two robots named Lewis and Clark). Lewis and Clark, outfitted with 5 cameras, were built for autonomous navigation, surveillance and reconnaissance. The realization of what is possible while continuously learning from rich visual sensory data inspired Mahesh to co-found Broad Reach Security. Two years later, Broad Reach Security joined forces with GE to develop VideoIQ - an award winning, state-of-the-art automated video surveillance system. In 2007, VideoIQ became an independent technology company focused on taking video analytics to the next level. Mahesh continues to be inspired by the adaptive nature of the immune system as he works on designing threat detection and prevention systems.

* Terrorism and the Electric Power Delivery System, NRC, November 2012.