Poland's grid operator wants to expand its powers in monitoring and responding to threats
Poland's grid operator PSE wants to expand its powers in the area of monitoring and responding to threats, e.g. in the area of intercepting unmanned aerial vehicles, PSE's head Grzegorz Onichimowski told journalists. The measures proposed by the operator to ensure infrastructure security are part of the so-called anti-blackout package.
"We would like to expand our powers in the area of monitoring and responding to threats, e.g. in the area of intercepting unmanned aerial vehicles, and we should share these responsibilities with the relevant services. We need to improve communication between the institutions responsible for national security so that key information flows in both directions as quickly as possible," Grzegorz Onichimowski told reporters.
He added that PSE, together with operators from the Baltic countries, is applying for funds from the CEF programme for the development of air operations, e.g. over Lithuania, to secure the Suwalki Gap and synchronise the Baltic countries with the European system.
"We are planning a meeting with the general staff in this area in the near future. Further assets will be installed in terms of anti-drone and anti-aircraft protection, and together with other operators, we will identify the most sensitive points, such as stations, for protection," said Onichimowski, emphasising that anti-drone systems should belong to the military and that PSE is ready to cover part of the costs.
In the area of cybersecurity, the operator proposes to designate it as the managing entity of the sectoral CSIRT, i.e. the entity responsible for protecting IT systems that are critical to the industry. It also wants to introduce certification requirements for devices connected to the National Power System (KSE) in order to minimise their vulnerability to cyberattacks, among other things to ensure the ability to handle hacking incidents on devices connected to the PSE or OSD networks.
"We have recently connected many thousands of installations to the grid, whose resistance to cyberrisks is unknown. After the blackout in Spain, many people also suspected a cyberattack, because the imported devices connect to servers outside the country," the deputy head of PSE Konrad Purchala pointed out.
He added that power plants and distributed energy should have teams that monitor whether their installations have been hacked and are able to respond appropriately to an attack if necessary.
"It does not have to be your own IT team. It is possible to purchase a cybersecurity incident management service," Purchala stressed.
PSE representatives emphasised that Polish infrastructure cannot be held hostage by solutions used in renewable energy installations imported from China, among other countries, where it is not known whether they are managed only locally.
Security in this area is also to be increased by the local content solutions proposed by PSE, including changes to public procurement law to enable the contracting authority to specify that part of the production or service provision must take place within the EU, and in the case of contracts of particular importance (e.g. critical infrastructure), also in Poland.
PSE also proposes to expand the catalogue of bid evaluation criteria by introducing 'local content' or 'EU content' criteria, i.e. awarding additional points to bids with a specified share of components manufactured in Poland or the EU.
jz/ ao/
