DOE Announces Nearly $23 Million to Bolster Energy Security and Resilience

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced nearly $23 million for ten projects to help make the nation’s energy systems more secure, resilient, and reliable. The projects, selected by the DOE Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER), will conduct research to advance mitigation strategies for a wide array of threats to the energy sector, including cyber and physical threats, climate-based hazards, and natural disasters. Today’s announcement will help drive research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) needed to achieve President Biden and Vice President Harris’ ambitious clean energy and climate goals while enhancing the resiliency of America’s energy sector.

“From leveraging quantum-based technologies to deploying advanced sensors, DOE is making strategic investments to secure energy systems against climate, cyber, and physical threats,” said Puesh M. Kumar, Director of CESER. “This work is accomplished through robust partnerships with academia, industry, and technology companies. We know it will take the best and brightest to fully realize a secure and resilient energy future for all Americans, and the funding we are announcing today is a significant step toward that goal.”

The broad nature of the funding opportunity allowed CESER to select a diverse group of awardees, including cybersecurity technology companies, regional utilities, and academic partners, including a historically black college and university (HBCU). Competitively selected projects displayed innovation in methods or techniques, opportunity for positive impact, and scalability across multiple energy systems.  

The selected project leads and descriptions are listed below: 

• Brigham Young University will develop and demonstrate quantum-based technology to improve communications across distributed energy resource (DER) infrastructure and implement it within a zero-trust architecture (ZTA). 
• New York University will improve physical security monitoring systems at substations using distributed fiber-optics sensing technology that can detect intrusions with more accuracy and detail than existing sensors.  
• North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, the selected HBCU, will develop a scalable, flexible, and cost-effective cyber-physical platform capable of simulating a large-scale electric power grid with multiple DERs under various cyber and physical contingencies.  
• Operant Networks, Inc. will integrate security and access control across energy systems’ devices by focusing on next generation ZTA and demonstrate its interoperability with commonly used operational technology (OT) cybersecurity tools.   
• The Research Foundation for the State University of New York (SUNY RF) will create a more accurate fire spread prediction model and implement a comprehensive situational awareness system that tracks fire arrival times to critical energy assets and infrastructure.  
• Southern California Edison will employ innovative technologies to enable DER to continue operating while detecting or mitigating a cyber threat and achieve reliable, self-organizing monitoring and control during a cyber attack.  
• Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station was selected for two climate-based projects: 
  • One project will better prepare the electric grid for extreme weather and other natural hazards by building engineering software tools that include these scenarios in power grid simulations.  
  • The other project will develop machine learning programming to help detect and identify failing devices using high-fidelity, real-time feeder data, enabling utility operators to fix the equipment before a fire ignites. 
• Texas A&M University will integrate light, camera, and siren systems into the GDI Gun Detection System to harden substation infrastructure and reduce power outages from physical damage or intrusions.  
• University of North Dakota will create a comprehensive security solution for detecting, classifying, and responding to physical and climate-based threats to substations by integrating advanced sensor equipment, machine learning algorithms, and a data system that can leverage information from multiple devices without compromising security.  

To learn more about CESER’s efforts to secure and protect America's energy sector, click here.  

CESER reserves the right to make more selections from this funding opportunity at a later date.