Area-Significance-Driven Attack Strategy Design and Resilient Defensive Control for Multiarea Power Systems

This article investigates the security challenges associated with integrated attack-defense strategies for multiarea power systems (MAPSs). Traditional attack models often employ indiscriminate approaches that overlook the heterogeneous significance of different area subsystems. In practice, however, these areas contribute unequally to the overall stability and security of MAPSs. To address this gap, an area-significance-driven attack model is introduced, in which the importance of each area is quantitatively evaluated based on its contribution to global system stability and operational security. This targeted approach enables adversaries to maximize system disruption by selectively exploiting high-impact components. In parallel, an adaptive defensive control strategy is proposed to dynamically respond to the characteristics of detected attacks, thereby mitigating damage and enhancing system resilience. By coupling targeted attack modeling with adaptive defensive control, a unified framework is established that characterizes the interactive dynamics between adversarial threats and system responses in MAPSs. Finally, simulations on a three-area power system confirm the disruptive potential of area-significance-driven attacks and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed defense strategy in maintaining system-wide stability under adversarial conditions.