Meerkat Helps Stymie Substation Sabotage, Improves Grid Security

POWER Engineers, Incorporated (POWER) created Meerkat (patent pending), an innovative and powerful physical security analysis tool, to help electrical substation owners and operators safeguard their assets and protect the nation’s critical infrastructure from damaging or crippling physical attacks. Highly customizable, Meerkat can save utilities time, identify the most effective solutions for their budgets and protect against service disruptions. It’s also saving utilities on their bottom lines.  

"In our experience, traditional security analysis and design can take up to three months to accurately identify sight-line threats and design threat mitigation,” said Chief Innovation Officer Jason Pfaff, “but with Meerkat, we’ve been able to reduce that timeframe to around three weeks, depending on the client’s availability.” 

In recent years, the power delivery industry has faced a surge in physical threats to its substations. Malicious actors have used firearms and other methods to target power facilities, inflicting damage and causing widespread outages that can affect entire communities. In response, regulatory bodies, such as the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, have established standards requiring utility owners and operators to protect their assets against such attacks.  

Meerkat uses high-quality data and interactive models to help substation owners and operators test their assumptions and make informed decisions about security solutions in real time. For every location, the team behind Meerkat uses the most accurate and up-to-date data to create a realistic 3D model of the study area, including all buildings, topography and vegetation. 

POWER’s Physical Substation Security Expert, Chris Ott, said, “We’ve been hearing from auditors and regulators about the need for more objective vulnerability and mitigation assessments, but many of them had a difficult time explaining what that process might look like. We took on that challenge. Moving from a subjective approach to a more objective assessment was the driving force behind Meerkat.” 

Meerkat digitally reconstructs the site in an interactive 3D model that can highlight the vulnerability of critical assets and test the effectiveness of proposed security solutions. Moving a wall, planting a tree or shifting terrain is as easy as clicking and dragging on screen, providing visible results almost immediately. Managers can test scenarios to determine effective security solutions without overbuilding and driving up costs.  

Any entity interested in learning if Meerkat is right for their facility can request a demonstration from our experts at [email protected] or explore more on our website at https://meerkat.powereng.com

POWER Engineers | www.powereng.com