Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition- SCADA - News

Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems have been in use at electric utilities for decades, but electric utility SCADA is far from a stale topic. Increasing investment from electric utilities, technological innovation and the issue of "cybersecurity" promise to keep electric utility SCADA in the news for the foreseeable future. Recent electric utility SCADA market analysis from Frost & Sullivan indicates that the revenue for North American power transmission SCADA systems, specifically, totaled $150.3 million in 2004 and projects to grow to $214.7 million by 2011 (View article).

In the meantime, cybersecurity of electric utility SCADA systems has come under increased scrutiny in recent years, as electric utilities work to become compliant with NERC CIP (critical infrastructure protection) standards (view articles) . The findings of a recent utility industry survey indicate that SCADA cybersecurity is a very real concern, as 20 percent of the survey's respondents believed that their SCADA systems have already been subjected to outside threats (View article"Study reveals concerns about utility industry security breaches") . Compounding the problem of shoring up electric utility SCADA systems is the fact that different technologies and techniques may be required depending on whether the utility is working to secure a newly installed SCADA system or a legacy SCADA system (see article: "Cybersecurity for Legacy SCADA Systems" ). As utilities seek to learn more about SCADA system cybersecurity, information from recent webcasts on the topic may prove helpful: View Webcasts

While SCADA technology has been in use in electric utilities for some time, technological innovation hasn't slowed. Utilities are now looking to upgrade their aging SCADA systems to maximize reliability and reduce unnecessary costs. One municipal power utility, for instance, has deployed an upgraded SCADA system that combines smart meters and a high-speed satellite network to improve upon their standard configuration of leased phone lines, electric meters and remote terminal units (see article: "SCADA by Satellite Helps AMP-Ohio Increase Data Reliability" ). AMP-Ohio is not alone as many electric utilities are currently working to on SCADA upgrades (see articles ).

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