The Department of Energy is preparing to invest up to $70 million in technology to reduce risks to energy infrastructure from cyber and physical threats, natural disasters and extreme weather events as part of the All-Hazards Energy Resilience Program, according to an announcement issued last week.
Funding will be provided competitively through DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response (CESER), the department said. As many as 25 projects will receive grants of between $500,000 and $5 million. Groups associated with universities; national laboratories; nonprofits; companies; and state, local and tribal governments are eligible to apply.
CESER’s cyber and physical security investments will focus on addressing threats from “the growing digital landscape” and vandalism, sabotage and ballistic damages like the substation shootings of December 2022 in Moore County, N.C., which knocked out power for 45,000 customers. (See House Energy and Commerce Examines Moore County Attack.)
FERC has praised NERC’s Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) reliability standards, which govern cyber and physical security for electric utilities, as an “effective technical baseline” for the industry and even held them up as a model for other energy sectors following the 2021 ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline. (See Colonial Hack Sparks Competing Recommendations at FERC.) But DOE said in its release that “today’s approaches to prevent these attacks” — physical attacks in particular — don’t go far enough to “minimize intrusions and damage.”
University-based research and development into cyber and physical security is a particular focus of the program. DOE said applicants in this area must be from historically Black colleges and universities, and research teams must include participants from the energy sector such as utility owners and operators or service providers.
In addition, CESER is seeking projects that will address climate and wildfire mitigation, including “opportunities to harden infrastructure against wildfires” and reducing the impact of extreme weather on energy transmission resources.
Climate change and the expected increase in severe weather have become standard topics of conversation among FERC, NERC and electric industry stakeholders, with the ERO’s 2023 Long-Term Reliability Assessment released last month highlighting the issue as a significant threat in the coming decade.
CESER said successful applicants should “span all types of energy delivery infrastructure,” including electric utilities, gas pipelines and renewable energy sources. The program is seeking “innovative and unique solutions that are not ‘one size fits all.’” According to the projects’ funding opportunity announcement, the department hopes to identify “next-generation tools and technologies … that will become widely adopted throughout the energy sector to reduce an incident disruption to energy delivery.”
Funding applications are due by March 4. CESER will notify selected recipients in May to begin award negotiations, with the amounts of the final awards to be announced in September.
“Making smart investments in America’s energy systems today is essential to ensuring they’re more reliable and resilient against tomorrow’s threats,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said. “As we build our clean energy future, these investments will help save money in the long run by identifying and developing innovative solutions that ensure our nation’s energy infrastructure can withstand emerging threats and the challenges of a changing world.”
