Solar security
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Which is better equipped to ward off a hacker: your laptop or the electrical grid?
If you said “electrical grid,” you’d be wrong—a fact that Sudip Mazumder, professor of electrical and computer engineering, plans to address by improving the technologies that integrate solar power systems into the national power grid.
The cybersecurity project will focus in part on securing one of the most unprotected devices: solar inverters, which Mazumder described as vulnerable to many threats. He and his research team will address the issues by devising advanced modeling, analysis, control, communication, software, and hardware methodologies that, taken together, will make the grid more resilient and safe.