Following a recommendation from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), work began in 2003 on a study that focused on the systemic risks induced by the increasing ubiquity of digitalisation within critical infrastructures. The study took the electricity grid, rail transportation network and Information and Communication Technology system (ICT) as reference infrastructures and Switzerland and neighbouring countries as its reference region.
The methodology comprised desk research, interviews with knowledge experts from within the three industries, case studies of several infrastructure failures, and an international challenge meeting held at the Swiss Re Centre for Global Dialogue, Rüschlikon, in February 2004, attended by 20 subject matter experts from five countries and from academia, industry and governmental organisations.
Further work focused more specifically on the risks (defined as the potential loss of continuous power supply and the secondary consequences of such a loss) associated with the European electric power system, on the risks associated with the use of ICT to monitor and control performance, and on the risks associated with the interdependencies between the two systems. The objectives of the study were :
to examine the European electric power system, from both the technical and socio-economic perspectives, as a critical infrastructure linked to and interdependent with other vital systems e.g. ICT ;
to identify weaknesses and vulnerabilities within this “mega-infrastructure” ;
to identify potential recommendations for technical and non-technical solutions to certain threats and vulnerabilities which may cause end-user disruptions ;
to propose improvements to risk governance strategies ; and
to suggest areas requiring further research.
The project team (from ETH Zurich, the EC’s Joint Research Centre and the Technical University of Delft) presented its study to IRGC in April 2005 and, after peer review, it was recommended that the team continue their work independently from IRGC with a view to publishing the study when completed. The resulting book, ’Critical Infrastructures at Risk : Securing the European Electric Power System’, was published by Springer in January 2006. Click here for further information about this book.