Critical Infrastructure Resilience

The TASTI-GRID web-interface platform, a GIS-based software developed by ORNL, assists state energy offices in decision-making surrounding grid resilience and reliability investments for utilities of varied size and capacity. TASTI-GRID’s design enables users to examine grid resilience across their state – with county-by-county comparisons of distinct utility service territories. Leveraging data from the US Census, EAGLE-I™, Energy Information Administration, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Association, and ORNL capabilities, TASTI-GRID can be used as a tool to inform where investments into critical infrastructure may create the most beneficial impacts for the greatest number of people. Platform will be rolled out to all 50 states in 2025.

ODIN is a network of leading US electric service providers committed to providing comprehensive interoperable power outage data – enabling utilities and stakeholders to freely exchange data with designated stakeholders aiding in outage restoration, grid reliability, risk mitigation, emergency response, and more. ODIN leverages two easily implementable standards for reporting electrical power outage data via Common Information Model (CIM) IEC 61968-3 and MultiSpeak. In as little as 30 minutes, utilities can begin participating in the ODIN network, which provides technical support for implementation.

The current grid system faces challenges in data sharing due to the complex landscape with multiple stakeholders, each with varying data requirements and ownership structures. The ongoing transformation of the energy landscape, driven by digitalization, will further increase the complexity of data management while addressing data privacy, security, interoperability and governance and encouraging open data sharing culture. Implementing leapfrog Data Strategies to incentivize data sharing from regulated utilities and accelerate privacy preserving federated learning environment working closely with TMEPA and TVPPA representing 153 local power companies as our living laboratory. Embedded within, is Open Data Portal which incorporates Metadata analysis, innovative data governance and risk assessment innovation for the data repository and aims to standardize categorization and user access across electric grid data.

Data centers have become critical infrastructure assets, but their rapid innovation and demand are outpacing electric utilities' ability to build and deliver energy supply. This mismatch poses a risk of disintermediation for utilities. The expansion of energy infrastructure by electric utilities faces numerous challenges, including real estate issues, OT/IT silos, energy/water/fiber constraints, strategic material shortages, and regulatory hurdles. Additionally, the electrical grid's readiness stability assessment is hampered by a lack of advanced modeling, optimization, and analytics tools. The Hi-Tech sector has no incentive or regulatory oversight to play equitably with real grid constraints. Multi-variate optimization across siloes is needed instead of working in siloes in IT, Grid, water, real estate, generation, etc. There are legitimate concerns that the rural municipalities and cooperatives will be left further behind while larger IOUs gravitate towards multi-billion funding opportunity. ORNL is uniquely qualified due to dedicated Critical Infrastructure Resilience team and HPC digital twin expertise and have some analytical models in place that can be leveraged to build a data center siting capability and advanced modeling, optimization, and analytics tools for load forecasting.

5-year project to provide resilience as a service and improve Tennessee Valley grid resiliency through our regional living laboratory, enabling local, municipal, and cooperative utilities Making leaps towards system robustness and adaptability – EDGAR will unite the Tennessee Valley region at the forefront of proactive grid resilience, providing automated text/email advisories up to 72 hours before a likely outage event, highlighting the inducing weather event, and its forecasted impacts to the overall grid, the location, and the population. This project complements existing and future integrated emergency management strategies – offering data-driven and AI-based decision support advisory services. With seven states that make up the Tennessee Valley Public Power Authority, this initiative will reduce the need for reactive or ad-hoc management, reduce the needs for point-in-time triage during outage events, and improve outcomes for high-need grid-reliant customers and other critical services.

Providing gas network modeling and analytical insights to Federal Rail Administration for the 140,000 miles of rail networks.

Supriya Chinthavali, Group leader of Critical Infrastructure Resilience