On behalf of the Department of Energy’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, the National Energy Technology Laboratory selected the ten project proposals listed below as awardees under the Department’s Cybersecurity for Energy Delivery Systems 2019 Research Call:
| Applicant | Project Title | Team Members | DOE Funding Requested (millions of $)* | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) (Oak Ridge, TN) | Scalable Quantum Cybersecurity for Energy Storage Systems | Engineering Power Board of Chattanooga (EPB), Los Alamos National Laboratory, Qubitekk Inc. | 3 | to develop Quantum Key Distribution to reveal the presence of an adversary at the moment of intrusion |
| Sandia National Laboratory (SNL) (Albuquerque, NM) | Energy Storage Security (ESSec) Microservices | Arizona Public Service, DTE Energy, Duke Energy, Entergy, Grimm, Open Energy Solutions Inc, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories | 3 | to isolate power system applications to reduce the cyberattack surface. If compromised with malware, these containerized processes can be identified and replaced without disruption of operation |
| Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) (Richland, WA) | Verification and Validation Assuring Reliability and Security (VARS) | ABB, ANL, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), Rajant Corporation, Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) | 2.7 | to develop a V&V framework to be a one-stop shop that guides risk-informed testing to minimize vulnerabilities and reduce risk |
| Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory (LBNL) (Berkeley, CA) | Supervisory Parameter Adjustment for Distribution Energy Storage (SPADES) | Arizona State University, NRECA, Siemens Corporate Research | 3 | to allow battery storage systems to automatically defend against attacks |
| PNNL (Richland, WA) | Geospatial Visualization to Enable Holistic Response and Situational Awareness | Resilient Grid, WAPA | 3 | to reduce the cognitive burden on the analyst to identify cyber-threats to the grid and, in turn, enable them to make faster decisions and act more quickly |
| Idaho National Laboratory (INL) (Idaho Falls, ID) | Geo Threat Observables | Eaton Research Labs, Hitachi, New Context Services, Southern California Edison, Splunk Technology | 3.7 | to develop communities around operational technology (OT) systems components to determine the next logical threat when an incident occurs |
| National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) (Golden, CO) | Situational Awareness of Grid Anomalies (SAGA) for Visual Analytics: Near Real-Time Cyber-Physical Resiliency through Machine Learning | CableLabs, Fort Collins Utilities, Holy Cross Energy, Northern Lights | 3 | to identify anomalous behavior, to rapidly detect a cyberattack against the power grid, dynamically and in near real-time through machine-learning techniques |
| PNNL (Richland, WA) | Analytic Integration Framework for the Big Data Platform | Ames Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, NRECA, Sandia National Laboratory, WAPA | 2.03 | to integrate OT data sources, models, analytics and visualizations using a holistic approach for rapid mitigation of cyberattacks |
| LBNL (Berkeley, CA) | Provable Anonymization of Grid Data for Cyberattack Detection | California Energy Commission, Kevala Analytics, Inc., National Strategic Research Institute, NUTech Ventures, Portland General Electric, SunPower Corporation, University of Nebraska-Lincoln | 3 | to explore techniques to analyze data for critical energy infrastructure while preserving anonymity |
| ORNL (Oak Ridge, TN) | CYVET: A Cyber-Physical Security Assurance Framework based on a Semi-Supervised Vetting | Lincoln Electric System, NRECA, Nebraska Public Power District, Omaha Public Power District, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, South Sioux City | 2.99 | to develop V&V capabilities to test deployed systems against cybersecurity requirements |
*Due to rounding, numbers presented above may not add up precisely to $30,000,000
Under this research call, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers, such as National Laboratories, were the prime awardees. For each project, the prime awardee will be expected to collaborate with one or more energy sector stakeholder as a sub-awardee, including but not limited to: suppliers and integrators of energy delivery control systems and components; energy utilities; energy asset owners and operators; providers of cybersecurity services for energy delivery control systems; and/or educational institutions.
Projects selected are multi-year, high-risk, and high-payoff. Each project addresses a challenge in one of the following topic areas:
- supply chain
- security of energy storage systems
- big data collection and anonymization
- cybersecurity verification and validation frameworks
- visualization tools for the energy sector
- analytic tools for DOE’s Big Data Platform
- large-scale energy sector analytics
To meet departmental objectives for national security interests and to serve the best interests of the government, the Department reserves the right to set the expected period of performance and to decide on continuation, redirection, or termination at the end of each phase for each project.
For more information on the concluded proposal process, see the frequently asked questions document provided prior to the submission deadline.