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DOE OSTI2020

Assessing DER Network Cybersecurity Defences in a Power-Communication Co-Simulation Environment

Increasing penetrations of interoperable distributed energy resources (DER) in the electric power system are expanding the power system attack surface. Maloperation or malicious control of DER equipment can now cause substantial disturbances to grid operations. Fortunately, many options exist to defend and limit adversary impact on these newly-created DER communication networks, which typically traverse the public internet. However, implementing these security features will increase communication latency, thereby adversely impacting real-time DER grid support service effectiveness. In this work, a collection of software tools called SCEPTRE were used to create a co-simulation environment where SunSpec-compliant PV inverters were deployed as virtual machines and interconnected to simulated communication network equipment. Network segmentation, encryption, and moving target defence security features were deployed on the control network to evaluate their influence on cybersecurity metrics and power system performance. The results indicated that adding these security features did not impact DER-based grid control systems but improved the cybersecurity posture of the network when implemented appropriately.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2022

Ambassador Project (Final Report)

SEL, in collaboration with its partners, performed research, development and demonstration of a trust, data, and resource management software layer enabling multiple software applications from different suppliers to operate in a Software Defined Infrastructure. The Energy sector has successfully deployed Software Defined Networking (SDN) technology and is rapidly scaling deployments. One major benefit of SDN is the abstracted centralized nature of the orchestration and management of the network. This architecture enables end users to deploy new technology and capabilities as quickly as they perform firmware upgrades to field devices. When an end user needs to roll trucks to install new equipment, they simply deploy new software to run on top of this SD-Infrastructure. This has attracted many software companies to develop value added features and introduce new capabilities, which is all good for the industry but has also introduced new challenges, including how to manage trust between these software applications, how to manage the data integrity and access, and how to manage access to the network resources each of these software applications are demanding. Completion of this project developed and demonstrated a safe and reliable resource scheduler and cybersecurity trust management communication platform allowing multiple software applications to operate in a SD-Infrastructure resulting in the commercialization of a software eco-system and architecture that maintains interoperability, cybersecurity, and reliability where the end user can safely scale out their software to leverage the powerful benefits of SDN.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2021

Scalable, Physical Effects Measureable Microgridfor Cyber Resilience Analysis

SPEMMCRA provides a low-cost simulated method to provide for testing of control theory and cybersecurity approaches to microgrid implementations. Specifically, this physics-based approach provides realistic responses to compare control strategies in simulation, but also to demonstrate actions that can or cannot be taken in taking cybersecurity actions . As communications interfaces or other actions are taken that affect the flow of data, SPEMMCRA can show whether the microgrid operation is adversely affected by what is intended to mitigate a cybersecurity event.

Rieger, CraigG↗

DOE OSTI2020

APPLICATION OF MATURITY MODELS FOR EVALUATING CYBERSECURITY PROGRAMS AT NUCLEAR AND RADIOLOGICAL FACILITIES

Maturity models can be used to provide government agencies, industry associations, and organizations operating nuclear facilities with the ability to quickly evaluate the maturity of their cybersecurity programs and identify areas to prioritize for improvement. The Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (C2M2) was developed by the U.S. Department of Energy to allow organizations in the energy sector to evaluate the programmatic capabilities of their cybersecurity programs in a consistent manner, communicate programmatic maturity information, prioritize cybersecurity investments in targeted areas of concern, and track how the maturity of their cybersecurity program evolves over time. The C2M2 is designed for use by any critical infrastructure organization regardless of ownership, structure, or size. The C2M2 can be easily fine-tuned to access the maturity of nuclear cybersecurity programs and their application at individual facilities. Built on a foundation of existing cybersecurity standards, frameworks, programs, and initiatives, the model features 10 security domains. Performance in each security domain is characterized using a structured set of cybersecurity practices that represent activities an organization can perform to improve cybersecurity in their domain. Each practice can be quickly evaluated as being either fully, largely, partially, or not implemented. Once practices are evaluated for each security domain, the model defines four maturity indicator levels that apply independently to each domain in the model. To earn a maturity level in a given domain, an organization must adequately perform all the practices for that maturity level and its predecessor level(s). A small assessment team can conduct a C2M2 assessment in a single day. A screening version of the C2M2 allows an initial look at the maturity of nuclear cybersecurity programs that could be completed in under an hour.

Cyber security, Nuclear security, maturity model↗

DOE OSTI2026

Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE) Power Generation Guide [Slides]

This guide offers suggestions for applying CIE principles to technologies used to generate electric power. It addresses issues of design, implementation, and maintenance, preemptively addressing cybersecurity threats to electric generation. The intended audience for this guide includes practitioners across the energy and cybersecurity sectors, such as energy industry professionals (e.g., engineers, system designers, operators, and researchers) and cybersecurity experts (e.g., communication system designers, information technology/operational technology [IT/OT] administrators, and penetration testers).

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2025

Exponential Backoff and Its Security Implications for Safety-Critical OT Protocols over TCP/IP Networks

The convergence of Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) networks has become increasingly prevalent with the growth of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications. This shift, while enabling enhanced automation, remote monitoring, and data sharing, also introduces new challenges related to communication latency and cybersecurity. Oftentimes, legacy OT protocols were adapted to the TCP/IP stack without an extensive review of the ramifications to their robustness, performance, or safety objectives. To further accommodate the IT/OT convergence, protocol gateways were introduced to facilitate the migration from serial protocols to TCP/IP protocol stacks within modern IT/OT infrastructure. However, they often introduce additional vulnerabilities by exposing traditionally isolated protocols to external threats. This study investigates the security and reliability implications of migrating serial protocols to TCP/IP stacks and the impact of protocol gateways, utilizing two widely used OT protocols: Modbus TCP and DNP3. Our protocol analysis finds a significant safety-critical vulnerability resulting from this migration, and our subsequent tests clearly demonstrate its presence and impact. A multi-tiered testbed, consisting of both physical and emulated components, is used to evaluate protocol performance and the effects of device-specific implementation flaws. Through this analysis of specifications and behaviors during communication interruptions, we identify critical differences in fault handling and the impact on time-sensitive data delivery. The findings highlight how reliance on lower-level IT protocols can undermine OT system resilience, and they inform the development of mitigation strategies to enhance the robustness of industrial communication networks.

DNP3↗

DOE OSTI2020

Performance Assessments of Demand Flexibility from Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings: Issues and Considerations

This SEE Action Network report explains basic concepts and fundamental considerations for assessing the actual demand flexibility performance of buildings participating in demand flexibility programs and responding to time-varying retail rates. Demand flexibility is the capability of distributed energy resources (DERs) to adjust a building’s load profile across different timescales. Assessments determine the timing, location, quantity, and quality of grid services provided. The results can be used for financial settlements and to improve performance of demand flexibility, support its consideration in resource potential studies and electricity system planning, and contribute to cost-effectiveness evaluations. While practitioners and regulators regularly find opportunities to improve performance assessments of demand-related services, to a large degree current best practices are sufficient for basic service offerings as demand flexibility is implemented today. However, advances in assessment practices will be required in a future with grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBs) that provide continuous demand flexibility by integrating multiple DERs and flexibility modes (load shed, load shift, modulate, and generate). Example practices include using new baseline constructs—including whether baselines are even required for certain building flexibility modes or configurations, deploying more advanced metering and analytics, further developing cybersecurity standards, improving communication standards for increased interoperability, and establishing performance metrics and assessment procedures for load modulation as it is more fully defined and implemented. This report provides information on prioritizing and designing performance assessment elements for demand flexibility programs and time-varying retail rates, assessment protocols, and research and development needs. Additional research sponsored by DOE’s Building Technologies Office offers more detailed technical information on assessing performance of demand flexibility, including definition of performance metrics.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2021

Cybersecurity Guide for Distributed Wind Presentation

This presentation communicates information about the MIRACL project Resilience Metrics report and Resilience Framework report. It was created for the 2021 MIRACL advisory board meeting. Distributed wind sits at the intersection of grid-connected, off-grid and behind-the-meter cyber-physical electrical energy systems. The unique physical properties and communications requirements for distributed wind systems mean that there are unique cybersecurity considerations, but there is little to no existing guidance on best practices for cybersecurity. This presentation is intended to be a starting point for distributed wind stakeholders including manufacturers, installers and integrators, and operators (facility, aggregator, or utility). A holistic threat perspective is used to describe the adversaries, threats, and potential impacts of cyberattacks, with special emphasis on what sets distributed wind systems apart from other distributed energy resources (DER). We present the recommendations for cybersecurity, both in terms of needs of the system and roles that specific stakeholders should fulfill. Distributed wind systems can come in a variety of architectures and applications, so there is no one-size-fits-all approach to cybersecurity. However, this document contains the relevant information for stakeholders to identify the cybersecurity needs of their system, refer to relevant standards, and apply best practices in a manner most consistent with their security and operational goals.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2023

Denial of Service Attack Detection via Differential Analysis of Generalized Entropy Progressions

Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks are one the most common and consequential cyber attacks in computer networks. While existing research offers a plethora of detection methods, the issue of achieving scalability, a low false positive rate, and high detection accuracy remains open. In this work, we address this problem by developing a differential method based on generalized entropy progression. In this method, named as DoDGE, we continuously fit the line of best fit to the entropy progression of destination addresses and check if the derivative, that is, the slope of this line is less than the negative of the dynamically computed standard deviation of the derivatives. Furthermore, to distinguish from flash events, we leverage the symmetry that when a flash event occurs, the derivative of the entropy progression of source addresses is positive. With this design, we omit the usage of the thresholds and the results with five real-world network traffic datasets confirm that DoDGE outperforms threshold-based DoS attack detection by two orders of magnitude in terms of false positives on average. When compared to ten machine learning (ML) models, DoDGE achieves a balanced accuracy of 99%, while the average balanced accuracy for the ML models is 52%. Moreover, the results show that DoDGE successfully differentiates between a flash event and a DoS attack. Furthermore, since the main computation cost of DoDGE is the entropy computation, which is linear in the volume of the unit-time network flow, uses integer only operations, and works on a small fraction of the total flow, it is lightweight and scalable.

Cybersecurity, wireless communication↗

DOE OSTI2020

Advances in High-Power Wireless Charging Systems: Overview and Design Considerations

Wireless charging systems are foreseen as an effective solution to improve the convenience and safety of conventional conductive chargers. As this technology has matured, recent broad applications of wireless chargers to electrified transportation have indicated a trend toward higher power, power density, modularity, and scalability of designs. In this article, commercial systems and laboratory prototypes are reviewed, focusing mostly on the advances in high-power wireless charging systems. The recent endeavors in magnetic pad designs, compensation networks, power electronics converters, control strategies, and communication protocols are illustrated. Both stationary and dynamic (in-motion) wireless charging systems are discussed, and critical differences in their designs and applications are emphasized. On that basis, the comparisons among different solutions and design considerations are summarized to present the essential elements and technology roadmap that will be necessary to support large-scale deployment of high-power wireless charging systems. The review is concluded with the discussion of several fundamental challenges and prospects of high-power wireless power transfer (WPT) systems. Foreseen challenges include utilization of advanced materials, electric and electromagnetic field measurement and mitigation, customization, communications, power metering, and cybersecurity.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

DOE OSTI2022

Bridging the ICS 'Communication Gap'

Protocol analytics for enabling forensics of industrial control systems.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Assessing Solar Cybersecurity: Questions for States to Ask Electric Utilities

To help State Energy Officials and Public Utility Commissions engaging investor-and consumer-owned utilities and the solar industry in topical discussions about their cybersecurity practices and priorities in general, and for interconnected solar systems, specifically, this report outlines discussions prompts for these discussions. By using the questions in this tool states can explore aspects of utilities’ cybersecurity risk management programs that target solar devices, systems, and communication pathways. Such discussions help states identify cybersecurity gaps and assist in emergency response planning, as well as general risk awareness.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2025

Land-Based Wind Reference Architecture

This report describes a summary and the final deliverables for the Wind Reference Architecture project funded by the Department of Energy's (DOE) Wind Energy Technology Office (WETO). The project objective was to further refine the reference architecture of the existing wind power plant reference architecture developed by Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) by expanding the wind turbine generator (WTG) into a separate individual wind turbine reference architecture. Additional details regarding the wind turbine system and how it integrates with a wind power plant were researched and reflected in the reference architecture. This addition is important because it allows researchers to understand the components and devices in a wind turbine, how they function and how a wind turbine integrates into a wind power plant to be able to perform cybersecurity evaluations on the system. The communication and control systems were the focus while developing this reference architecture to understand the cybersecurity posture of a wind turbine and power plant. The information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) systems perspective are integral in helping improve the cybersecurity posture by creating a starting point to study how wind energy can be safely designed and deployed in our power grid from an integrated systems standpoint. A holistic wind power plant and turbine reference architecture and simulation was developed and made open-sourced for further research efforts.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2026

Testing and Validation of Wireless Communication Architecture for Heliostat Fields: SIPS Final Report

This work focuses on the development and testing of a low-cost wireless communication system for heliostat fields, enabling significant capital costs reductions for concentrating solar thermal systems. Outputs of this work include a working demonstration of a multi-node communication system, clear reporting of system performance, and technical documentation of system development and architecture for reproducibility. Through this process, an open-source repository was created for manufacturing hardware at ~$30/heliostat. The system includes software for cybersecurity, achieving sub-second communication latencies and derisking of hardware for eventual scale-up to tens of thousands of heliostats. While the system is not currently off-the-shelf ready, there is now a clearly defined pathway for scaling up and completing the commercial development process.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2025

Grid Communications: Digital Assurance and Supply Chain Challenges and Emerging Regulation Session Two

The TADA Grid Communications Workshops are designed to strengthen cybersecurity and digital assurance across the energy sector by focusing on secure deployment and management of grid communications technologies. These workshops bring together state energy offices, utilities, and technology suppliers to explore the intersection of communications infrastructure, supply chain risks, and emerging regulatory requirements. Participants will apply Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE) principles to reduce risks in communications systems, engage with INL’s procurement guidance, and explore future tools. Through scenario-based exercises and peer exchange, attendees will develop risk-based security strategies and actionable compliance roadmaps tailored to their grid communications projects. The workshops also help participants navigate evolving regulatory frameworks such as FEOC rules in the OBBB, NERC CIP-013, and NDAA 2024, while identifying compliance gaps in mixed-technology environments. A key outcome is the formation of a practitioner network with ongoing access to INL expertise and resources, fostering long-term resilience in the digital energy ecosystem. This is Session 2 of 3 (Full Version).

29 - ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY AND ECONOMY↗

DOE OSTI2025

Grid Communications Supply Chain & Emerging Regulation Challenges Session 1

29 - ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY AND ECONOMY↗

DOE OSTI2025

Securing Grid Communications Infrastructure: Addressing Gaps Beyond NERC CIP Facility Perimeters

The North American electric grid relies on a complex communications infrastructure that extends beyond facility perimeters traditionally covered by NERC Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) standards. While CIP requirements have significantly strengthened cybersecurity within Electronic Security Perimeters, many operational communications—such as those between control centers, substations, and third-party networks—fall outside current regulatory scope. As grid modernization introduces new technologies and connectivity models, these external pathways present evolving security challenges. This brief explores the nature of these challenges, including emerging attack vectors and supply chain considerations, and highlights how ongoing grid transformation increases exposure to sophisticated threats. It outlines practical strategies and policy options to complement existing standards, such as expanding secure communications practices, enhancing supply chain transparency, and fostering collaboration among federal, state, and industry stakeholders. Near-term actions like encryption, authentication, and contractual safeguards can help reduce risk while longer-term frameworks are developed to ensure resilient and secure grid operations.

24 - POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2024

Planning Roadmap for DER Integration in India: Industry Best Practices and Resource Guide

Ensuring safe, reliable, cost-effective DER integration at scale requires holistic planning, broad stakeholder engagement, and should address key development areas such as standards adoption, equipment testing and certification, interoperability and cybersecurity, interconnection procedures, and advanced forecasting and DER management. Each of these areas currently represent significant challenges for utilities, regulators, OEMs, developers, and even consumers worldwide. India has already seen significant growth of DERs and has announced targets for substantial growth yet to come, with the potential for DERs to make up a non-negligible portion of the country's overall generation capacity. As such, it is of critical importance that Indian stakeholders consider the potential impacts of wide-spread adoption of DERs and take preemptive action related to the five development areas listed here, among others. India should consider strategies including the adoption of key DER standards related to interconnection, testing, and cybersecurity; enabling effective and secure communication channels for DER interoperability; testing and certifying DER equipment in accredited testing laboratories; building robust, streamlined interconnection procedures; and revamping legacy system planning structures to incorporate DERs in a holistic planning framework.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗