sPower CyberAttack
The cyberattack briefly cut off communications between sPower’s control centers and a dozen remote wind and solar farms that served as its power generation stations. Lara Hamsher, government relations and communications manager at sPower, provided the following statement: “sPower is a generator owner and generator operator of wind and solar generation assets that are operated from a 24/7/365 control center in Salt Lake City, Utah. On March 5, 2019 sPower’s Control Center observed a brief (five minutes or less) communication interruptions between the control center and 12 generation sites. These interruptions had no impact to generation and did not cause electrical system separation. After investigation and in accordance with sPower’s commitment to continuous improvement, processes and systems were improved to help ensure as much uptime as possible.”