Implementation of a Grid-Tied Secure Reconfigurable Power Converter

In power converter designs embedding security is essential to protect the device from physical and network attacks, and to provide secure communication between Distributed Energy Resources (DER) and power system operators. The communication-based cyber-attacks such as physical access to a network and remote networked attacks compromise the signals, reverse engineer and inject faults. The resource-constrained terminal devices such as smart meters, power converters as well as third party appliances open additional opportunities for malicious actors. In this work, we present a low overhead secure communication framework that incorporates processors, Trusted Platform Module (TPM) for communication in a grid-tied system. We propose a novel reconfigurable design of a power converter controller to establish secure communication for a grid-tied converter. An open-source Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) platform is used to develop the library functions necessary to perform power electronic controls. The FPGA works in conjunction with the integrated TPM to exchange command and feedback signals. Preliminary results of the operation of the controller with a 3-phase inverter feeding power to a resistive load are also presented.