Abstract
The increasing integration of photovoltaic (PV) systems in power distribution networks introduce significant cyberphysical vulnerabilities, particularly concerning frequency stability. This paper investigates the impact of cyber-attacks targeting the communication and control layers of PV systems, leading to their sudden outages. This research provides a comprehensive steady-state security assessment by quantifying system frequency margins and effective stiffness across a high-dimensional operating space. An exhaustive search methodology is employed, analysing a very wide range of 652,800 pre-attack operating scenarios to map the network's vulnerability to frequency deviations. The study categorizes system risk into three critical thresholds: operational limits, protection system activation, and total system collapse for electrical power networks. Numerical study results demonstrate the statistical distribution of these violations and identify the maximum permissible load disturbance the system can withstand while maintaining primary control. By establishing a direct correlation between PV cyber-attack magnitude, load damping, and system stiffness, this work aims to provide a robust framework for identifying highly vulnerable operating points that an intelligent adversary might exploit to compromise power system resilience.