Assessing the impact of interdependencies in electric power systems

Electric power systems (EPS) greatly support our daily activities and are therefore among the most prominent critical infrastructures that need to be reliable and resilient in providing their services. They are rather complex and vulnerable systems, being composed by two interdependent infrastructures: the electric infrastructure (EI) and its information-technology-based control system (ITCS), which controls and manages EI. Understanding the reciprocal effect of interdependencies among interacting infrastructures is tackled by many studies in several application sectors. In this paper, we address the quantitative assessment of the impact of interdependencies in EPS, focusing on blackoutsrelated indicators. The obtained results contribute to better understand the EPS vulnerabilities and are expected to provide useful guidelines towards enhanced design choices for EPS protection at architectural level.