The U.S. Department of Energy recently announced up to $70 million in funding to support research into technologies designed to increase resilience and reduce risks to energy delivery infrastructure from a variety of hazards, including cyber and physical threats, natural disasters, and climate-change fueled extreme weather events.
The new competitive funding opportunity will be available to public and private sector stakeholders, universities, and DOE’s National Laboratories “and will help advance next-generation innovations that strengthen the resilience of America’s energy systems, which include the power grid, electric utilities, pipelines, and renewable energy generation sources like wind or solar,” DOE said.
Managed by DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, the All-Hazards Energy Resilience program “seeks to address future challenges so that energy can continue to flow safely and reliably to communities across the nation,” it said.
DOE said the funding opportunity is intentionally broad, and awardees are encouraged to develop innovative and unique solutions that are not “one size fits all.”
Awardees will span all types of energy delivery infrastructure and will address a diverse array of potential threats across energy production, generation, transmission, and/or distribution.
CESER is expected to fund up to 25 research, development, and demonstration projects under this funding opportunity ranging from $500,000 to $5,000,000.
DOE said it is encouraging diverse teams from universities, nonprofit and for-profit companies, national laboratories, state and local governments, and Tribal Nations to apply.
There are several proposed topic areas for the projects, including:
- Cyber Research and Development
- Climate Mitigation Research and Development
- Wildfire Mitigation Research and Development
- Physical Security Research and Development
- University-Based Research and Development
For more detailed information on and a full list of the topic areas, click here.
APPA offers a variety of resources and tools for its members related to physical and cybersecurity.
