Seeking to “encourage the rapid development of cybersecurity technologies,” the Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) on Wednesday announced a program to accelerate the creation of cybersecurity solutions for the North American power grid.
The Clean Energy Cybersecurity Accelerator is sponsored by DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response (CESER) and Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), which will both contribute experts to serve as a federal advisory board within the program. A steering committee will include representatives from industry to provide “strategic direction and cost-sharing.” Xcel Energy (NASDAQ:XEL) and Berkshire Hathaway Energy are among the first members of the committee.
According to a statement from NREL, the effort is aimed at addressing vulnerabilities in the existing bulk power system, as well as new weaknesses expected to develop as the grid moves away from traditional generation resources toward renewables, distributed energy and storage solutions.
“A disruptive approach to rapidly infuse cybersecurity innovation into renewable energy systems, without delaying time-to-market, is needed to outpace the speed of emerging threats to our evolving energy infrastructure,” NREL said.
The accelerator will work on a yearly cycle, with the advisory board and steering committee setting a priority topic for each term. A new cohort of security-focused startups working on early-stage technologies will be recruited each year to go through a three- to 12-month incubation period.
Technologies developed during each cycle will be evaluated with NREL’s Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES) platform. ARIES is a simulated grid environment with a three-layer model — representing electrical, control and telecommunications systems — in which utilities can test various threat scenarios. Along with cybersecurity, the platform has also been used to test the impact of energy storage and hybrid energy systems, new system architectures and advanced energy infrastructures.
“The transition to a clean energy economy will require groundbreaking cyber solutions to strengthen America’s grid security, protect our energy infrastructure and address the increasing threat of extreme weather events across the country,” Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk said in a separate press release. “We are grasping the opportunity to build a grid that can dispatch historic amounts of renewable energy across the country while addressing grid vulnerabilities and positioning America for a clean energy future.”
The launch of the new accelerator comes amid a time of growing awareness and concern in the utility sector around the safety of the grid’s electronic components. High-profile cyberattacks like the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in May have already led to new cybersecurity requirements on the nation’s pipeline network. (See TSA Issues New Pipeline Cybersecurity Requirements.)
Following the Colonial attack, President Biden in July announced an initiative to strengthen cyber defenses in industrial control systems at “priority critical infrastructure” systems. (See Biden Launches ICS Cybersecurity Initiative.) The president has warned in the past that “a real shooting war with a major power” is a significant possibility in the event of a major cyberattack against the U.S.
