Priority cyber-enabled energy system technologies designated in US

The US government has identified five cyber-enabled technologies for additional focus to ensure the increasingly digitalised energy system is prepared to meet future challenges.

With cybersecurity a key issue for the grid as a ‘critical infrastructure’, many of the newer connected solutions are able to be manufactured and deployed with ‘secure by design’ and ‘default’ principles.

The technologies that are identified and considered key to the near-term energy transition are:

● Batteries and battery management systems, foundational for the energy transition and with properly architected and secured software promise an ambitious energy future less constrained by the time or geography of electricity generation.
● Inverter controls and power conversion equipment, equipped with advanced computing and networking capabilities and when paired with robust cybersecurity, can support more sophisticated grid services while promoting greater resilience and lower operating costs.
● Distributed control systems, with secure-by-design management software will enable greater operation and coordination of hundreds of thousands of distributed energy assets, virtual power plants, community microgrids and other innovative energy systems.
● Building energy management systems, with software-defined resource management is transforming the energy ecosystem with the IoT and computer-based facility controls proliferating across our built environment.
● Electric vehicles and EV supply equipment, powered by secure and sophisticated distributed energy control systems can enable smart charging or similarly EV batteries can be marshalled to be either local sources of backup electricity or citywide VPPs.

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In support of these priorities, the US government is seeking to cultivate a strategically aligned stakeholder community, develop nimble standards and regulations, produce cutting-edge research and development, support swift and resilient deployment, manage risk to relevant supply chains, build workforce capacity and mitigate systemic risk, a statement reads.

“Through initiatives [in these areas] the US government seeks to seize this once in a generation opportunity to equip our critical infrastructure with modern and secure technology.”

Investing in America

The basis for this move is the ‘Investing in America’ agenda, which is driving significant clean energy investment and ultimately is expected to lead to a lowering of energy costs.

The statement says that as the new clean energy technologies are designed, developed and deployed, the US administration is working alongside stakeholders to further strengthen the digital and energy ecosystems, including using innovative new methods for mitigating sources of risk to the critical infrastructure.

These technologies are often powered by new entrants to the field, with nimble startups and novel contributors spurring innovation alongside more established energy actors. This increasingly diverse group of stakeholders requires deep coordination and coherence to drive comprehensive resilience across the energy transition.

Opportunities anticipated from the clean energy innovations include extracting more performance from existing infrastructure, boosting the deliverability of low cost and new energy sources to customers, increasing the efficiency of the electric grid, improving the reliability of assets and systems, revolutionising the transportation infrastructure and improving resilience to enable rapid recovery from extreme weather.