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This course covers how to design and build regional and neighborhood substations that are resilient against sabotage and other security threats. Participants will learn how to incorporate Department of Defense Unified Facility Criteria (DoD UFC) and Nuclear Regulatory Commission Design Basis Threat (NRC DBT) standards into new substation designs.
The course emphasizes strategies for optimizing substation security, including how to protect critical, hard-to-replace components and implement effective, low-cost physical security measures.
Participants will benefit from the expertise of Prescient’s subject matter experts — professionals who investigate substation incidents, serve as forensic engineers when components fail and create innovative models to address future challenges and strengthen grid resilience.
Benefits and Learning Outcomes
- Define the methodology to create sabotage-resilient substations.
- Understand how to match physical security with risk factors.
- Apply deny and delay strategies in response to threat actors.
- Analyze design base threats and recovery strategies.
- Evaluate the criteria used to establish beneficial physical security.
- Create an action plan to match installation costs with long term benefits.
Course Outline/Topics
Day 1: Introduction to Physical Security of Substations
- Traditional Security – Deter, Detect, Deny, Delay and Defend
- DOD Unified Facility Concepts (DOD UFC)
- NRC Design Base Threat Considerations (NRC DBT)
- Regional Substation Design Base Threats
- Neighborhood Substation Design Base Threats
At the conclusion of Day 1, participants will have an in-depth understanding of traditional physical security and the need for enhanced security in regional and neighborhood substations.
Day 2: Hardened Components and Beneficial Security
- Identify public, controlled, restricted and critical zones
- Identify outside the fence, inside the fence and inside the building risk factors
- Tabulate risk factors in each zone
- Compare detection and response time to critical threat time
- Review features of hardened substation components
- Present beneficial physical security concepts
- Demonstrate zone-focused, beneficial, physical security
At the conclusion of Day 2, participants will have an in-depth understanding of the risks imposed by threat actors. They will understand methods of hardening components and enhancing security in regional and neighborhood substations.
Day 3: Cost Benefit Analysis
- Tabulate the cost of a 24-hour regional blackout
- Tabulate the cost of a three-day neighborhood blackout
- Estimate the cost of recovery and repair at a regional substation
- Estimate the cost of recovery and repair at a neighborhood substation
- Estimate the cost of traditional physical security at a regional substation
- Estimate the cost of beneficial security at a regional substation
- Develop a cost-benefit analysis for beneficial security at a regional substation
- Estimate the cost of traditional physical security at a neighborhood substation
- Estimate the cost of beneficial security at a neighborhood substation
- Develop a cost-benefit analysis for beneficial security at a neighborhood substation
Who Should Attend
This course is designed to provide foundational knowledge needed to protect regional and neighborhood substations from threat actors. Course content will appeal to executives, managers, engineers and security officers at any stage in their career as well as analysts, coordinators, project managers and regulatory officials.