Berkeley Lab Receives Nearly $10 Million to Enhance Cybersecurity of U.S. Clean Energy Infrastructure

Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) will receive more than $9.7 million in federal funding to enhance the cybersecurity of our nation’s clean energy infrastructure. The award comes from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) as part of a $39 million package distributed across nine innovative National Laboratory projects. 

This funding initiative targets distributed energy resource (DER) systems, which are small-scale, localized energy sources like utility-scale solar, wind, storage and other clean technologies; electric vehicle chargers; and other customer-owned devices. 

In one funded project led by Berkeley Lab senior scientist Sean Peisert, researchers will team up with industry, academic and utility partners to create a software that allows utilities to share cybersecurity information securely between them without risk to consumers. In a second funded project led by Berkeley Lab policy researcher Daniel Arnold, scientists aim to develop tools for detecting and mitigating cyber-attacks on microgrids and electric power distribution systems. 

“Given the ever-increasing amounts of DER coming online the distribution grid, these projects will provide important new tools for grid operators to increase situational awareness and the cyber-resiliency of their networks,” said Arnold.