DOE, NREL, and Clean Energy Industry Stakeholders Partner to Address Cybersecurity for Hybrid Energy Systems

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) announced the launch of Renewable Energy and Storage Cybersecurity Research (RESCue)—a multi-laboratory effort, led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, that will analyze and address cybersecurity concerns for hybrid energy systems that include wind, solar, and energy storage. 

The one-year pilot project expands on DOE’s Wind Cybersecurity Consortium to include solar and energy storage and invites original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and owner-operators with renewable energy portfolios to share insights and feedback. Through regular discussion and collaboration, RESCue members will work together to assess threats, identify gaps and opportunities, coordinate on best practices, and work towards addressing cybersecurity concerns related to generation and distribution of hybrid renewable energy systems. 

The goals of the one-year pilot project include: 

• Establish a Hybrid Renewable Cybersecurity Consortium comprising of stakeholders from the wind, solar and energy storage industries to foster an ecosystem of information sharing and actionable intelligence gathering that could be used for improving the cybersecurity of hybrid renewable systems.  
• Create a cyber-resilient design framework for hybrid renewable systems which considers design philosophies, design aspects, and design metrics.  
• Develop modular reference architectures, such as cyber-physical models, for the common modes of installations of hybrid renewable systems such as for wind, solar and energy storage. 
• Coordinate, facilitate, and support the discussion and development of common cybersecurity solutions that could be quickly and easily deployed to utility-owned hybrid renewable systems. 
• Host an in-person workshop to share perspectives on the strengths and weaknesses, to help identify potential pathways for achieving robust cybersecurity defenses and responses, and to provide viewpoint on what areas of publicly funded research and development would have the highest value for hybrid renewable energy systems. 

RESCue supports efforts in achieving strategic objective 4.4 (Secure our Clean Energy Future) of the White House's National Cybersecurity Strategy. This pilot project is supported by Idaho National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. The work performed under RESCue will be shared periodically with technology-specific research being performed by the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and Office of Electricity.