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Main Authors: Chao, Chen, Ma, Zixiao, Zhang, Ziang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.03635
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author Chao, Chen
Ma, Zixiao
Zhang, Ziang
author_facet Chao, Chen
Ma, Zixiao
Zhang, Ziang
contents System restoration is critical for power system resilience, nonetheless, its growing reliance on artificial intelligence (AI)-based load forecasting introduces significant cybersecurity risks. Inaccurate forecasts can lead to infeasible planning, voltage and frequency violations, and unsuccessful recovery of de-energized segments, yet the resilience of restoration processes to such attacks remains largely unexplored. This paper addresses this gap by quantifying how adversarially manipulated forecasts impact restoration feasibility and grid security. We develop a gradient-based sparse adversarial attack that strategically perturbs the most influential spatiotemporal inputs, exposing vulnerabilities in forecasting models while maintaining stealth. We further create a restoration-aware validation framework that embeds these compromised forecasts into a sequential restoration model and evaluates operational feasibility using an unbalanced three-phase optimal power flow formulation. Simulation results show that the proposed approach is more efficient and stealthier than baseline attacks. It reveals system-level failures, such as voltage and power ramping violations that prevent the restoration of critical loads. These findings provide actionable insights for designing cybersecurity-aware restoration planning frameworks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_03635
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
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spellingShingle Cyber Resilience of Three-phase Unbalanced Distribution System Restoration under Sparse Adversarial Attack on Load Forecasting
Chao, Chen
Ma, Zixiao
Zhang, Ziang
Systems and Control
System restoration is critical for power system resilience, nonetheless, its growing reliance on artificial intelligence (AI)-based load forecasting introduces significant cybersecurity risks. Inaccurate forecasts can lead to infeasible planning, voltage and frequency violations, and unsuccessful recovery of de-energized segments, yet the resilience of restoration processes to such attacks remains largely unexplored. This paper addresses this gap by quantifying how adversarially manipulated forecasts impact restoration feasibility and grid security. We develop a gradient-based sparse adversarial attack that strategically perturbs the most influential spatiotemporal inputs, exposing vulnerabilities in forecasting models while maintaining stealth. We further create a restoration-aware validation framework that embeds these compromised forecasts into a sequential restoration model and evaluates operational feasibility using an unbalanced three-phase optimal power flow formulation. Simulation results show that the proposed approach is more efficient and stealthier than baseline attacks. It reveals system-level failures, such as voltage and power ramping violations that prevent the restoration of critical loads. These findings provide actionable insights for designing cybersecurity-aware restoration planning frameworks.
title Cyber Resilience of Three-phase Unbalanced Distribution System Restoration under Sparse Adversarial Attack on Load Forecasting
topic Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.03635