November is Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience Month, providing a focus on a national priority that affects us all. As President Trump said in his Presidential Proclamation, “During Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience Month, we emphasize the vital role of strong national infrastructure in the national and economic security of our Nation. By mitigating risks to our critical infrastructure, we can keep America safe, healthy, and prosperous.”

Here at the Department of Energy, the Office of Electricity (OE) leads the Department’s efforts to ensure the Nation’s critical energy infrastructure, including the electricity grid, is secure and able to recover rapidly from disruptions. The electricity grid is the backbone of American society.  The grid feeds our Nation’s defense critical facilities and allows other necessary infrastructures to deliver essential services to communities and businesses. Every day, OE works closely with its private and public partners to harness innovation for a stronger, more reliable North American energy system and a path forward to energy independence. 

Our strong partnerships with the energy industry and the public sector are vital to the work that we do. Working with the national labs and relevant stakeholders, we are developing an integrated North American Energy Resiliency Model (NAERM) to conduct planning and contingency analysis that will examine vulnerabilities in the North American energy system. We are supporting Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands for long-term resiliency improvement. We are also pursuing megawatt-scale storage capable of supporting regulation, ramping and energy management for bulk and distribution power systems, and examining the integration of high-fidelity, low-cost sensing technology for predictive and correlation modeling for electricity and oil and natural gas (ONG) systems. At the same time, OE is addressing electricity-related policy issues while also providing policy design and analysis expertise to states, regions, and tribes.

As the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) notes, keeping the Nation's critical infrastructure secure is a national priority that involves action across the entire community. Sometime this month, I hope you will take a few minutes to learn more about the Department’s committed efforts to ensure the reliable and resilient delivery of energy by exploring the Office of Electricity (OE) and the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response (CESER). To learn more about Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience (CISR) Month and the Nation’s other critical infrastructures, visit the DHS website and the CISR Toolkit.