Transcripts For CSPAN3 House Science Subcommittee Hearing On Electric Grid Modernization 20240714

All right. This hearing will come to order, without objection the chair is authorized to declare recess at any time. Good afternoon, welcome to todays hearing. The future of electricity delivery, modernizing and securing our nations electricity grid. I want to thank all of our witnesses for joining us here today. This is such an important topic. Im a young guy as you can tell but i have read history about what it was like when we first started building the electric grid over a century ago now. I dont think we could have imagined the technologies that we would use to power or homes and businesses and hospitals and everything today. And i think the challenge is different, you know, back then the real challenge was just extending power itself throughout every corner of our society, and there was a challenge which was that those providing power knew they could make money in the cities in well Populated Areas in places with a lot of business and commercial opportunities, but it was not as profitable to take electric power out into the country side, into the hill country of texas, for example. And so the government made a basic deal, which was that they would provide essentially a monopoly over providing power in a lot of these areas. If i did would make quite a bit of money, utilities would and in exchange, they would carry their product everywhere it needed to be. And i thinks in 21st century, we have a similar dilemma on our hands but theres a similar deal to be made, the challenge is not just to provide power itself everywhere, but to provide power in a way that is clean and efficient and allows us to stay economically competitive, even as we become a society much less dependent on carbon, and although electricity demand has been flat, we should see electricity demand increase as we electrify more segments of our society in order to accomplish those goals. But to get there, its clear that we have to change the energy sector. We know that as we do that, for example, theyre going to be much more serious threats to our electric grid from Cyber Attacks and otherwise. We know that the economics of this whole thing are changing as Natural Gas Resources have come online. Thats good for constituents like mine who are saving money. But as all of this stuff changes, were going to have to invest to really upgrade the system that is meant to integrate all of these new sources of energy. And to strike a balance between them in realtime. Which has become one of the big challenges with Battery Storage especially. Thats a computing challenge. Its a technological challenge, its a challenge when it comes to making the basic Infrastructure Investment and thats what were here to talk about today. I was definitely alarmed to hear as im sure many of you were about the first serious cyber attack on our nations electric grid back in march, or at least it was reported in march. As far as we know, no customers lost power in that attack. But it obviously is a warning sign of the incredibly serious damage that could happen if we dont take action on this issue, and by the time one happens when somebody does lose power, it will be much too late, and so the choice facing all of us today is whether we can get the legislative machinery to work in such a way that we can really make a serious investment and try to protect folks from the Cyber Attacks that we all know are going to come. We know that russia and china and other adversaries, and they would love to have in their back pocket, the ability to shut down the grid when its convenient for them and the decision facing us is whether they will allow it to happen, and i think i speak for every member of the committee when i say they will not. Thats why im looking forward to talking about these subjects today. We have the draft, grid modernization and Development Act of 2019, which will allow us to set forth a wide array of Research Opportunities on topics like grid modernization, resilience, Emergency Response, modeling, which we know is going to be so important to be able to manage the new type of grid that we have, and better integration of buildings, vehicles and renewable sources. Several members of this committee, including mr. Cfoste have introduced legislation on these, and we are happy to incorporate elements of those in this draft and making sure we do that. We are looking at the grid Cyber Security research and Development Act of 2019 which updates a bill previously introduced by mr. Berra. This would authorize a cross Agency Research and Development Program to do exactly what i have discussed which is harden and mitigate the electric grid from Cyber Attacks. It will be carried out in partnership with the department of Homeland Security, the National Institute for standards in technology, and the National Science foundation would involve technical assistance, education and work force. One of the aspects of Cyber Security that i think is often underappreciated is the fact that it is also a work force issue. We dont have enough people trained in working in Cyber Security today as we need and there will be tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of more openings in the next few years. Many of which in my home area of pittsburgh, the great work done at carnegie melon, and the university of pittsburghs Cyber Law Institute among others, training people up for this. Thats what these kinds of programs are going to authorize. Were excited to talk about them. With that ill recognize the Ranking Member mr. Weber for an opening statement. Thank you, chairman lamb for hosting this hearing. I was asking what the population of pittsburgh is. The metro area is about 1 1 2 million. Is that about right . Thats a lot of electricity but we appreciate you hosting this hearing. This afternoon we will hear from expert witnesses on the existing strengths and weaknesses of our nations electric grid and the impact, the potential attacks could have on our grid reliability and National Security. Our Witnesses Today will also discuss advances in the research and development of new grid tools, and technologies. And provide hopefully insight, i know you will, into how the federal government can work alongside of American Industries to strengthen our energy sector. The reliability of americas power grid is one of our greatest economic strengths. I like to say that the things that make America Great are the things that america makes. How do we do that. We have a strong, Reliable Energy supply. Thats how we do it. In my home state of texas, reliable and affordable power serves a population that is increasing by more than 1,000 a day. Chairman lamb, thats why i was asking you, we literally get 30,000 people a month into texas. Now, multiple times 12 and you figure out what that does in a year. 1,000 people per day, and supports the industries that drive the United States consumption of energy. Texas is by far the nations largest producer and consumer of electricity. And keeping its power grid reliable and secure is absolutely key to maintaining the u. S. Economic growth. But even in texas, it is Common Knowledge that our electric grid faces significant and diverse threats to the reliability and the resiliency of power delivery. Put simply, we cannot predict when a cyber attack would threaten our power supply that you referenced mr. Chairman, and we do not know when the next Natural Disaster might occur. In 2017, we were reminded of this fact by the impact of hurricane harvey, a devastating category 4 hurricane that hit the texas gulf coast and caused significant generator and transmission line outages for many on the texas coast and the texas interconnection. However, due to proper planning and management by what we call the electric Reliability Council of texas, the texas grid was able to recover quickly from this devastating storm. Its not a question of if, but a question of when that same power grid will face significant physical and cyber threats, the modernization of the National Electricity system must be our priority. According to the department of energy, doa, the u. S. Electric grid must be updated within the next decade to address challenges including ageing u. S. Energy infrastructure, changes for demand in energy, emerging threats and fundamental shifts in the u. S. Energy supply portfolio, as Energy Sources rightfully so, like renewables and nuclear increase. Again, we can see these changes taking place in my very own home state where today Nuclear Generation is our most reliable source of energy. In fact, running at more than 93 of the time over the last three years. And where we also lead the nation in wind energy, and were number five in solar energy, by the way. As next Generation Energy technologies continue to come online and as Cyber Security capabilities continue to grow and evolve, we must take our action to counter our abilities and provide necessary updates to this very critical and necessary infrastructure. Thankfully, doe funds broad research and Development Programs to support grid modernization and Security Technologies through Department Wide collaborations like the Grid Modernization Initiative or gmi, and the Grid Modernization Lab consorts gmlc. D. O. E. Also funds Robust Research in novel grid technologies and computational modeling efforts through its office of lelectricity, and cybr Security Technology through Energy Delivery systems through its office of Cyber Security, Energy Security and Emergency Response. We are grateful to have two witnesses representing these important efforts here this afternoon, the honorable karen evans and juan torrez at the National Laboratory and cochair, welcome to both of you. Welcome to all of you. Modernizing our grid will require these important programs. Along with cooperation from many federal agencies, states and industry, i hope our witnesses, i trust our witnesses can share their expertise and provide valuable insight on how congress can best support these very collaborative efforts. I want to thank the chairman again for holding this hearing. I look forward to productive and electrifying discussions and mr. Chairman, i yield back. It couldnt be the first time that electricity was powered by a lot of hot air from texas. Or the last. Had to include that for the Ranking Members granddaughter in the audience, and we welcome her. I think it is important to note the bipartisan nature of this discussion as it often is on this committee, on these subjects, mr. Weber and i are big supporters of Nuclear Energy and all of the above strategy. Its one thing that doesnt break through the headlines but a beacon of hope in washington some days. At this time, i would like to introduce our witnesses, the honorable karen evans is assistant secretary of the office of Cyber Security, Energy Security and Emergency Response caesar at the u. S. Department of energy. Before leading, she was the National Director of the u. S. Cyber challenge, a Public Private Program Designed to help address the skills gap in the Cyber Security field. She also worked for the george w. Bush administration where she was an i. T. Official at the office of management and budget, and served as department of energys commander in chief information officer. Mr. Juan torres is the associate Laboratory Director for Energy Systems integration at enrel and cochair of the Grid Modernization Laboratory consortium which is a partnership of 14 National Labs to advance modernization of the u. S. Power grid. Prior to joining enrel he held a variety of positions where he rkd worked on securing our Energy Infrastructure. Ms. Kelly speaks bachmann is the ceo of the Energy Storage association. Kelly has spent 20 years working in energy and Environmental Issues in the public, ngo, and private sectors, including united technologies, sun edison and alliance to save energy. She is a former commissioner of the Maryland Public Service commission where she also served as chair of the board of directors of the regional Greenhouse Gas initiative, covicechair of the naruc committee on Energy Resources and the environment and a member of the epri and grid modernization public add voviso group, and Katherine Hamilton, a Public Policy consultant si, specializing in clean energy and innovation, and the executive director of the advanced Energy Management alliance. She previously ran the grid wise alliance, was policy director to the Energy Storage association and worked at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Katherine worked in Buildings Research and government relations. She also spent a decade at an investor owned utility designing Electrical Systems for commercial and residential developments. As our witnesses should know, you will each have five minutes for your spoken testimony, your written testimony will be included in the record. When you have completed your spoken testimony, we will begin with questions, and each member will then have five minutes for questions. We will start with the testimony of ms. Evans. Chairman lamb, Ranking Member weber and members of the subcommittee, it is an honor and a privilege to serve at the department of energy as the assistant secretary for the office of Cyber Security, Energy Security, and Emergency Response. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on behalf of the department. One of the most Critical Missions at d. O. E. Is developing the science and technology to successfully counter the ever evolving increasing threat cyber and other attacks on our networks, data, facilities and infrastructure. D. O. E. Works closely with our federal agencies, state and local, tribal and territorial governments, industry and our National Laboratory partners to accomplish this mission. Another Critical Mission for d. O. E. Is ensuring the resilience of our electric grid and successfully countering the ever evolving, increasing threat of physical and Cyber Attacks. D. O. E. Recently announced an 8 Million Investment in innovations that will enhance the reliability and the resiliency of our Nations Energy infrastructure. This r and D Partnership opportunity will spur the development of the next generation of tools and technologies that will become widely adopted throughout the energy sector. As we protect our infrastructure from cyber threats, we are also working to improve and complete the resilience of our electricity systems. Our office of electricity also supports Transmission System resilience and generation diversity. And is exploring new architecture approaches for the electric grid. This includes the development of the north American Energy resilience model that aims to provide unique and Ground Breaking National Scale Energy Planning and realtime Situational Awareness capabilities to enhance security and resilience. A large component of d. O. E. s work is pursuing cutting edge innovation, big data, Artificial Intelligence and grid scale Energy Storage based on new technology. Grid scale storage will be an important enabler for renewable integration and clean based load power. While todays technologies are already providing value to the grid, there are physical limitations to the traditional batteries and pumped hydro that will be surpassed by the next generation technologies. Efforts in grid scale Energy Storage are already producing important advancements. Grid scale Energy Storage technologies have been demonstrated using new generation of advanced flow batteries, which rely on lower cost elect trro electrolytes. Which includes the development of the new grid storage launch pad aimed at accelerating materials development, testing, and independent evaluation of Battery Technologies for grid applications. In addition to the r and d at the d. O. E. National Laboratory Support the development of technologies that strengthen and improve Energy Infrastructure so that consumers have access to reliable and secure sources of energy. Another program driving enabling technologies is d. O. E. s Grid Modernization Initiative, gmi, which focuses on the integration of increasing the amount of available generation into the grid through r and D Investments at our National Labs. One note worthy gmi effort will accelerate the conversion of the National Wind Technology Center campus into an experimental micro grid capable of testing Grid Integration at megawatt scale. These are just a few of the examples of how the United States is approaching its commitment to updating and improving its Energy Infrastructure and environmental responsibility within its own border, but these same issues are also at the heart of so many of our partnerships and work abroad. Reliant and resilient Energy Infrastructure is critical to the u. S. Economys competitiveness, innovation, and leadership. Our longterm approach will strengthen our National Security and positively impact our economy. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before this subcommittee, and im happy to answer questions at the appropriate time. Thank you mr. Torrez. Thank you, chairman lamb, Ranking Member weber, members of the subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to discuss the critical challenge of grid modernization and Cyber Security and the Crucial Research needed to create a flexible, more secure and more resilient u. S. Power system. Im juan torrez, i serve as the associate Laboratory Director for Energy Systems integration at the department of energys National Renewable Energy Laboratory in colorado. I have been affiliated with federal research for more than 29 years, and my current position i direct the efforts to strengthen the security, resilience and sustainability of our nations electric grid. In addition im cochair of the Grid Modernization Laboratory con sor consortium, and team lead for the research. I commend the committee for the timely discussion given that every aspect of our economy, our National Security, and Critical Infrastructure in the u. S. Is deeply dependent on the reliable operation of our electrical system. Im often asked when will he be finished with modernizing the grid. The answer is that grid modernization is a journey, its not a single destination. As long as we need electricity to remain economically competitive to defend our nation against e vovolving threats, we need to continually advance our infrastructure. Fundamentally issue the research were conducting must ensure that our future grid has greater resilience to hazards of all types, improved reliability, enhanced security from increasing and evolving threats. Continued affordability to maintain our economic prosperity, superior flexibility to respond to the variability and uncertainty of conditions at different time scales including a range of Energy Futures. We have come a long way in a few short years of investment through the d. O. E. s Grid Modernization Initiative. There remains much work to do. Research within the gmlc has the opportunity to strengthen the t trajectory of our grids development. This will in turn inform the Investment Decisions we make today so we can increase the impact of the new technologies that will serve the grid for decades to come. The steps we take now can move us toward enabling the grid of the future to address pressing challenges such as a changing mix of generation types, a need for Cost Effective Energy Storage, extreme weather events, increasing cyber and physical threats. Electrify kags of our Transportation System, and growing use of digital and communication technologies. I would like to highlight a few examples ongoing through d. O. E. Support, the National Labs deep modeling capability is providing the basis for the d. O. E. Office of electricitys north American Energy assistance model, chthat will help us understand the state of natural infrastructure. We are developing a road map that will guide Cyber Security to confront the unique needs of the growing solar energy sector, and other distributed Energy Systems. As i speak with you, enrel in partnership with the Wind Technologies Office and the International Electro Technical Commission is hosting a Cyber Security workshop at the national Technology Center at n enrels flat iron campus, bringing key government and industry players together for the first time to address the Cyber Security needs of the growing wind power industry. Finally i applaud the subcommittee for the commitment and insight you have shown in holding this hearing and pending legislation that addresses the critical challenges of our future electric grid. The benefits of Technical Solutions cannot be fully realized without the appropriate business models, regulatory structure, and policies to support and enable them. So given the importance of very issues to d. O. E. , National Laboratories and congress, i would like to invite you to attend the National Lab Day on capitol hill next week july 24th in the ray burn house office building. The event will be focussed exclusively on grid modernization and Cyber Security and grid researchers, other expert from the lapse as well as myself will be on hand for discussion at a series of exhibits that will highlight much of the work im discussing today. Thank you for the privilege to address this committee, and i look forward to answering any questions you may have. Thank you, ms. Speaksbachmann. Chairman lamb, Ranking Member weber and members of the subcommittee on behalf of esa, thank you for the invitation to speak today on the role energy plays in modernizing and securing our electric power infrastructure. Ener Storage Technologies are changing the way we use electricity, it decouples the element of time from when we make it, move it and sell it. That simple concept enables enormous amounts of capabilities for the grid, supplying back up power, reducing peak system demands, relieving stressed infrastructure, firming variable generation sources like solar and wind, and optimizing inflexible sources like nuclear. Most people think of a battery when they hear Energy Storage. There are a variety of technologies, not only different kinds of batteries but mechanical technologies like pumped hydro, and fly wheels. Ice storm and molten salt and powertogas Storage Technologies Like Hydrogen and ammonia. Each has its own characteristics and best suited applications. Storage is uniquely flexible from among all resources. Its the only grid resource that operates as both supply and demand in a single asset. Ive outlined a lot of reasons in my written testimony of course for our claim quoting my fellow panelist, Katherine Hamilton but storage is the bacon of the grid, just makes everything a little bit better. Esa applauds the subcommittee for incorporating Energy Storage into the Grid Modernization Research and Development Act of 2019 to modernize and secure the electric grid. For the remainder of my testimony today, im going to outline the recommendations from my written testimony which are intended to strengthen the effect of the proposed legislation. So in Section Three enhancing Grid Resilience and Emergency Response the proposal to enhance Grid Resilience is really important particularly in light of the terrible impact of the increasingly frequent and Severe Weather events, limiting access to electricity. Grants for projects that increase the resilience of electric service with distributing Energy Resources will speed the ability of communities and local governments to prepare for the next disaster. Its also important for the federal government to use that information that it gathers in this effort to prove the economic case for resilience investment, more broadly, so that state commissions can measure Cost Effectiveness and private sector can step in with the proposed grant money is spent. To that end, esa asks the subcommittee to consider directing d. O. E. To work with stake holders to develop a method for quantifying the economic value of resilience. In section 6, there are a number of commendable provisions in section 6 grid scale Energy Storage. Reflecting bipartisan ideas from hr 2909 the promoting grid storage act, and the better Energy Storage Technology Act or best act. Esa endorses both of these bills. The promoting grid storage act would create a Competitive Grant Program at the department of energy for state and local governments, utilities, public power authorities and real coops, seeking support for incorporating storage into long term planning and grid operations. We respectfully request that the subcommittee include the Competitive Grant Program from sections 4 and 6 of the promoting grid storage act to accelerate learning through experience and share that investment responsibility. The best act emphasizes d. O. E. Investments in demonstration projects to provide flexibility on intraday interday and seasonal base. Those are intended to establish cost and performance targets which is critical but may pose a risk to innovation unintentionally limiting Technology Development pathways. Section 7 in the hybrid Energy Systems, we commend the subcommittee for effort to drive research and development on Storage Systems paired with generation. Hybrid systems with storage are relatively new, and we ask in this section that the subcommittee direct to seek a report on the current rules on interconnection, Market Participation and capacity accreditation of hybrid Energy Systems and finally in section 8, Grid Integration, in addition to the rd and d programs for integrating an electrified Transportation System we recommend adding complimentary rd and d effort on the reuse of ev batteries for second life applications in charging infrastructure and electric grid service. Reuse for grid applications could lower costs and could divert still useful assets from recycling or disposal. With that, i thank you for the opportunity to speak to these Critical Issues and i welcome your questions. Thank you, and ms. Hamilton. Good afternoon, my name is Katherine Hamilton, chair of the firm 38 north solutions and executive director of advanced Energy Management alliance, a coalition of distributed Energy Resource providers and consumers, thank you to chairman lamb, Ranking Member weber a lot has changed in the last two decades since i last appeared before this committee. Renewable Energy Resources are the cheapest source of electricity, and energy storjt storage, instrumental in allows these resources to efficiently, effectively and safely integrate into the electric grid and while integration continues, federal investment in leadership is crucial to solving many of our most complex puzzles around grid modernization. This act would provide a great deal of that leadership. It is appropriate that the first part of the bill focuses on resilience. The need for resilience continues to grow, given increasing storms, wildfires and climate related instances. Reliability is the percentage of availability over time while resilience is the ability to recover quickly from a specific situation. Distributed resources such as micro grids that can recover quickly and provide continued service to local communities will be important to increasing their resilience. In addition to metrics on outage duration, data should be collected on recover time, costs of down time and customer impact. I suggest that a section on risk be developed, mapping out areas at greatest risk from both a physical as well as an economic standpoint. Smart Grid Technology deployments have allowed the grid to operate more efficiently, and with greater visibility. The year of detective work necessary to determine that the northeast blackout of 2003 was caused by a branch in cleveland would no longer be case the thanks to these technologies. The focus on modeling is greatly needed. Modeli modeling assumptions can determine longterm investment that may or may not be necessary and are paid for through consumer rate increases, while planning models have improved, most are lacking considering demand sided resources, demand response, solar, energy efficient, combined heat and power, electric vehicles can contribute to the customer not just being a load but becoming part of the resource. Allowing the supply and demand sides to become interchangeable. Technology demonstrations are key to proof of concept, lowering risk and gathering data for innovative solutions, a concept used to some degree is a sand box where an area is set aside that is completely free of regulation and where multiple systems, technologies and approaches can be experimented with, removed from penalty and risk to the utility. Additional experimentation can actually lead to more creative solutions. Advanced Energy Storage has grown tremendously and seen exponentially released. New technologies have been nurtured and funded at the department of energy, including an rpe, and continued r and d, test new chemistries and use cases. Instead of identifying in research as grid scale or prescribing time durations for Storage Technology operations, i recommend stating the problems that should be solved or the services delivered and allow new chemistries and technologies to be developed that fit those needs. Grid integration is key to understanding how all of these systems can interact to multiply the benefits of innovative technologies. In addition to protects grid information and securities utility, any standards for consumer or Third Party Access should be reasonable while ensuring privacy of information. I would caution against being overly prescriptive and inadvertently stifling innovation, including the innovation that could mitigate security risk. Tracking Greenhouse Gas impact is still useful as we transition to a cleaner Energy Future and explore technologies whose Greenhouse Gas impacts are still relatively unknown. Finally, i would propose adding a new section to the bill, one focussed more on social science. Given the speed of our energy transition, manufacturing and worker transition is lagging. The u. S. Should not only be the leading source of entrepreneurship globally, but we should also lead the world in building and deploying new energy technologies. I suggest that research be conduct on how factories can be retooled, power plants repurposed and work rs trained to adjust to new technologies. The u. S. Is the Global Leader on clean and senator technology innovation. To continue on that trajectory, we must sustain the r and d programs that can assist grid operators, utilities, entrepreneurs, our work force and consumers. Thank you again to the subcommittee for allowing me to receive and showing leadership in great modernization, research and development. Okay. At this point we will begin our first round of questions. Ill recognize myself for five minutes. Ms. Hamilton, i would actually like to start where you left off, which is on the need to make sure that were thinking ahead on the impact of jobs that this transition will have. It will have it whether we like it or not, so as far as im concerned, the question is what are we going to do about it. The whole theme of todays hearing is how are we going to protect, how are we going to protect the grid, make sure that peoples power is protected, their day it is protected. We also have toic ma sure their to make sure their jobs are protected. I believe we can do that. Theres going to be a lot of hands on physical work that needs to be done to adjust our infrastructure, install new equipment, but i was hoping you could say a little bit more about what that would look like as a research project. What are some ideas of the type of research we would have to authorize. Who would be doing it, what do we need to know, and when if ul anything more you can say on that. Its a great question mr. Chairman, its something i think about a lot. Since i was in the utility, the work force has been ageing. Now about 30 of the utility work force con social securities consists of millennials and millennials tend to change jury box faster than they used to. You would start in the utility and retire in the utility but people change jobs a lot faster, and there are more types of jobs so we need to find out what trainings are needed. Its important to look at what are the skills we need, and where do we need to source those. Who can do that. What are the skills that transfer easily, for example, a coal worker that is an engineer or a certified electrician, might transfer really well into Energy Storage or solar, where an electrician might be needed. There is some of that to be done. In california right now there are wildfires that are going to potentially cause Public Safety outages of 30 days or more. I mean, substantial outages and there are not enough trained Tree Trimmers to do the work needed on vegetation management. You cant send a kid out with a bush whacker, this is really trained labor. So there are a lot of job needs and opportunities, and there are people who dont have jobs, and we need to somehow match those. Bre bringing the Public Sector and private sector together on that, seems a good way to think about that. I think thats correct. Anyone else from the panel want to jump in on that topic, are you familiar with researchers or people doing this kind of work who might be able to add to that . We will be sure to look at it on our own. Thank you for raising it. Ms. Evans on a similar theme, i noted at the beginning, i think were short on the Cyber Security work force and the jobs that need to be done there. Can you talk a little bit about how our bill or future efforts can help us incentivize people to not only go into the areas of Cyber Security but secure the public and help us protect these assets. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Theres a lot of work thats already going on in this area that i know you are aware of under the National Institute of standards and with the department of Homeland Security, and then with the executive order that just recently was released. So this, under the categories of cyber, its always going to increase. Its never going to go away. And also as my esteemed colleague just described the utility work force, youre going to have to constantly look at what skill sets youre going to need. Right now, we are very focussed on what i would call the, you know, the First Responders and those types of skills that you want to have if you think about it that way. But you also have to build out who are the specialists that are having, if you think about it on a one to ten, that is going to have to constantly be looked at, what is the right mix, both for the government as well as for the private industry. Thank you very much. And i think with both, you know, and you know this from hosting the Cyber Security challenge or promoting it, i think with both sets of challenges, we need to be will be to look deep into our educational pipeline, realize that starting younger people on these projects and gaining those skills at an earlier age is going to be essentially us to get ahead of this. Its harder to retrain them at an older age, give them the confidence they need to make that transition if we have people interested from the beginning. With that, i will recognize mr. Weber for five minutes. Thank you, sir. Assistant secretary evans, one of the things that makes texas unique, is our island grid that i referred to as the electric Reliability Council in texas, i know youre wear of that, and aware of that. And its my understanding it allows texas to respond more quickly to Cyber Attacks, physical threats, physical events, since they actually operate under one set of regulations, state of texas and of course theyre accountable, not to furk but to the agency in texas. In your opinion, are texas utilities more or less vulnerable because they have that kind of operating system . I dont know that i want to actually say theyre more or less vulnerable. I think that the way that texas has approached this problem is that theyre aware, and as was mentioned in some of my colleagues testimonies where we were talking about shifting more toward risk that they have the ability to constantly evaluate the risk, regardless of whether its a physical risk or cyber risk or a weather risk, and so it dependents on how the mix works but because of the way theyre organized, they can always constantly evaluate the risk. Right. And youre aware that theyre accountable to the puc of texas, Public Utilities commission, so the state as a whole gets to kind of have control of that grid issue one out of nine or eight in the country and theres a little undetermined area there, so i think it helps them work actually quicker and faster and i do want to come back to you, too, in your prepared testimony, you said that existing sexist caesar projects and Quantum Technology also, so how is caesar using ai to strengthen the electric grid against cyber threat, and i want a part b, the chairman talked about training people, and young people going into different jobs and changing jobs more often, is caesar, the department finding that they can find young people, retain young people and train people in ai and hopefully quantum computing . Ill take the second part of that question first. What we are doing as a department as a whole is we do have an education piece associated with what is happening in caesar. We have the competition which is the cyber force competition that reaches out to the all the universities, seven of the labs participate. Thats our outreach and we are attempting to also work with the labs as well as us to then hire, directly from the winners. We have a challenge just like the rest of the government, just like the sector as a whole in this area, so we are working on creative ways through our authorities to be able to do that. On the other part of the question is to looking at how we are using Artificial Intelligence and quantum computing. We have several research and Development Efforts that are underway but it is really to try to get it machine to machine so that youre elevating the skill level. Things that the machines can do based on how we know attack factors will happen is to build that into the technology and into the solutions and then have those learning capabilities that go across our data storage as it relates so thats the Artificial Intelligence piece so then we can then feed into the intelligence sector. And visiting the labs, i can tell you that the folks that i visit there that are studying under the labs, they are interested in how were going about doing this. Im hoping that i can hire them or they hire them. Okay. Well i appreciate that. I want to follow up with you on that. What are you experiencing in that same vein of thought . With regards to both questions ill start with the Artificial Intelligence and some of the advanced technology concepts. So what were seeing is the grid is evolving to the point that humans just wont be able to respond quickly enough to all the information thats going to be available to them. So theyre going to have to be aided through some sort of computing, Artificial Intelligence technologies. We are looking into concepts like Autonomous Systems where we can incorporate some of the intelligence there to make decisions, to maintain reliability, but also we need to do this in a way that we incorporate security from the very beginning, where we assume the systems are going to be targeted. So we are doing research in that particular space. With regards to the talent pipeline, on the research side, what we are seeing is the pipeline just is not going to be Strong Enough here longterm. Were not seeing enough people continuing into graduate research, their graduate studies so we see a shortfall in folks with backgrounds in computer science, computer engineering, in Electrical Engineering and the power grid, i think i heard earlier from ms. Hamilton, the fact that most of the work force in the utilities sector, they used to work their entire careers. They dont do that anymore. How can we retain folks in those areas, but also how can we retain the researchers so that we as a country can maintain leadership in these technologies that are going to shape the future grid. I appreciate that. I move my time, thank you, mr. Chairman. I recognize mr. Lipinski for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman, thank you for the hearing. I thank the witnesses for their testimony. I wanted to follow up on one of the things we were just talking about here, Artificial Intelligence. I have introduced the growing Artificial Intelligence to research or greater act, which would provide necessary resources to advance the science of ai and multiple applications and i know mr. Torrez was just speaking about this, secretary evans was speaking about this. I wanted to ask mr. Torrez, what are some of the Research Directions that need to be addressed to pursue an autonomous grid. Do you think the department of energy has the resources necessary to pursue the research right now . I dont think ive done a full assessment to be able to answer that full question but i can tell you about some of the things where i think the department of energy can have some impact. There are some foundational aspects to Artificial Intelligence application to the grid that we really need to develop further. We have some work going on right now where were applying ai concepts to the grid as i mentioned, focussed around building out four foundational areas that we think are really important. One is complex systems, and understanding complex systems theory. And the second is big data analytics. The third is nonlin ya linear c. With highly distributed systems some of the linear control concepts we use now may not apply in a highly decentralized type of system, and the fourth area is optimization. How do you really get all of these really complex, highly distributed where intelligence may be tributed distributed to together to achieve a common goal. It works as a cohesive system. Theres opportunity to continue to advance, some of the foundations to be able to apply ai for the grid specifically. Do you have anything you wanted to add there . Well, what i would like to offer you, sir, is that the secretary is very committed to the ai and the and under secretary debar, i know has been working on this. I would like to take it back and get back to you specifically about what our ai functions are doing. I know what were doing in our areas as it relates to cyber but the department is vast, as you know, so i would be happy to get it back to you s. I appreciate that. Well, in addition to ai, everyone, i think on this committee hopefully knows by now that my interest in always promoting social Science Research and the importance of social Science Research which sometimes gets short shift with the great importance that it has to fit in a lot of our other research, so very happy that ms. Hamilton raised that. Is there anything else that you wanted to add about what we need to do in integrating social Science Research into this area that were talking about . Thank you for the comment. One thing i would just note is that because i come from the, i come from working with entrepreneurial companies. Innovation has become much more democratized. Innovators are everywhere. There are kids in basements playing with their apps. So trying to make sure that our Research Programs are able to connect the dots so that we can bring sbe pen entrepreneurs to. They need to know that the department of energy and the National Labs have given it the seal of approval and have shown credibility by testing it. I feel like while part of that is about bringing new people into the industry because there are so many new excited young people coming in, we also need to make sure that we then connect them to the programs that are existing to enrich the programs too. Thank you. Appreciate that. I dont have much. Ill yield back. Thank you, chairman. Thank you all for being here. I wanted to touch on emps, the commission that assesses the threat has warned that the High Altitude emp would be and they quote an existential threat to the United States and its allies. That sounds pretty ominous. In your written testimony you written that youre working to address the emp risk by sharing knowledge and developing mitigation strategies. Could you explain a little bit of what youre doing to communicate with stakeholders, how the progress is going, what our readiness is at this point . Thank you for the opportunity to talk about that. The administration did pass and sent out an executive order dealing specifically with emps. So were leveraging the research thats already there. Theres a group that we work with within the National Labs, center for empgmd, simulation, modeling, analysis, research and testing. It involves several of our labs. Because of that research that was previously done. So we have savannah river, livermore is involved, los al h alamos and oak ridge. How do we model it so we can work with industry through our esec work and our oil and natural Gas Coordinating Group and share that Research Back out with them. Theres a debate of whether you need to harden it all the way up to military standards or whether you can take a the test beds are being developed to the point about being able to validate the technology and validate the research. Thats what were doing. We intend to accelerate that provided what happens in our fiscal year 2020 budget. I know the house passed it, so you guys included the ability for us to do that research so were looking forward to continuing that work. Are you working or communicating with local entities, local governments, Power Providers . Or is it more still in the Research Phase . The information that we have to date and how we work with state and local governments and through then our entry partnerships and then with the councils, we do convey that out. We also work with the National Governors association. We have many outreach. We work through the associations as well so the information and the research to date is shared. Then they also know what our project plan is Going Forward and who we are working with in the National Labs as well. Are you getting any feedback to what challenges are on the ground . The hardest part is like to what level and i would like mr. Torres to jump in here if he feels so inclined, is what exactly, how the investment is going to go forward and how you would harden the different pieces of this. And then a lot of the utilities, we have some things that are going on with some of the bigger utilities and they are sharing that information so that those decisions can be made. We also work with ferk on this as well and ferk also reaches out and shares the information too because this bms an Investment Decision and it will inform the standards decisions Going Forward with ferk. Any of you want to speak to it as well . So i totally agree with everything assistant secretary evans said there. There is an element of the energy thats released during an emp thats very similar to gmd, so thats something we need to take into account as well that is probably more likely than an emp event. Its maybe emaybe higher probab. Emp has been studied for quite some time. I would suggest that we take maybe a forward looking spin as we think about emp. A lot of times were looking at how do we harden the grid of today against emp. The grid we have in ten years will not look a lot like today. It will change. There are a lot of things going on right now where its become more distributed, the generation mix and so on. So we need to do some analysis and project how would we harden the grid of the future. Thank you. Recognize ms. Horn for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you to our witnesses and mr. Ranking member for holding this important hearing today. As im sure with many of us in places across this country but also on this committee, i also sit on the House Armed Services committee, that especially given, mr. Torres, what you mentioned about the blackout, were very concerned about our heck tri cal grid and our infrastructure as a National Security issue and an infrastructure issue. So id like to start, secretary evans, with you today if we could. We know we have significant work to do but im glad that youre doing this work. You mentioned in your testimony talking about the national imperative and the Cyber Security research Development Act, Cyber Security being one of the major threats. Im curious to hear how you would assess the current state of our grid Cyber Security efforts and what additional things those of us on the committee can do to help bolster those efforts. I want to echo some of the comments that my esteemed colleague just mentioned about looking for the grid of the future. So there is a robust mechanism that we have as an agency Going Forward but also with the whole of government approach that we take with our partners Like Department of home land security, transportation, depending on what were looking at. When we talk about the cyber threat and how it continues to evolve, what we really need to do is look at where were going to be in the future and how is that mix going to be. And then based on the risk modeling which has already been talked about. Id like to bring up again the north American Security model. The ability for us to be able to take the work thats coming from the National Labs, model it and be able to give you a databased type of decision, data informed based on where we are, how can we project this out into the future, what is the mix going to look like, how is the weather on that. Twhen we talk about that in the research that were doing, i applaud what the committee is doing which is to be very forward leaning into how research should be 1015 years from now on that grid of the future. Continuing on the resiliency model i want to turn attention to storage and generation. I represent oklahoma, which is well known of course as an oil and gas state. But we also have a robust collection of Renewable Energy that is growing, in fact, 39 of the energy we produce is through renewables. But we know the challenge is storage. Looking at the technologies as theyre evolving, beyond batteries and where we are for the resiliency factor, i know speaking with our utilities providers, one of the challenges as we diversify our Energy Sources is ready access beyond just the cyber issues and the other security issues. So can you speak to where we are on developing some of these other technologies to make them accessible beyond batteries. Thank you for the question. So oklahoma specifically does not have Battery Storage necessarily installed, but theres also 259 mega watts of pumps storage in the state so we congratulate you on that. In terms of other technologies, of course pumped storage is a very mature technology. Its installed it dwarves the amount of storage. Other mechanical storages like fly wheels are being used in short erin high power applications. Theres compressed air and liquid air storage and other mechanical systems that are in some demonstration levels right now. There are thermal Storage Technologies. Even when you think about buildings being a thermal storage opportunity, but water heaters in your home, there are a number of state programs that encourage water heaters in demand response. That is also a level of storage. Those of course technically are very advanced, just not used as much in the grid applications as well as they could be. Theres also molten Storage Technologies and other grid side technologies that are promising but are yet to commercialize. But progress has been made on those as well. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. Mr. Biggs. Thank you. Thanks to all of you panelists for being here with us today. The u. S. Relies on a robust Cyber Security front to keep our infrastructure including Delivery Systems safe. Im pleased that the president and his administration have made Cyber Security a priority. President Trumps National Cyber Security calls for the development of a superior Cyber Security workforce. This strategy states that a highly skilled Cyber Security workforce is a strategic National Security advantage, close quote. I agree with this assessment. Nearly two years ago i had the opportunity to moderate a panel at the Arizona State university Cyber Security conference. And we focused on education and workforce in this area. The panel included Cyber Security professionals representing asu, paypal and the National Institute of standards and technology. The main issue was raised and the Cyber Security Workforce Shortage that this country is facing. The center for strategic and National Studies reported that the u. S. Was facing a shortfall of almost 314,000 Cyber Security professionals as of january 1st of this year. Its important that we work to encourage a free market to develop a Cyber Workforce capable of managing not just the threats of today but anticipating the threats of tomorrow particularly in the energy industry. Im going to ask a question that i want to give each of you a shot at answering. I do have a couple of questions so if you can help me out by being as concise yet informative as possible. How can you form an education pipeline that will meet our Cyber Security Workforce Needs to keep our electric grids safe . Start with ms. Hamilton and go your left to right. Ill be really quick because im not a cyber expert. Just on education, you need to have it in our Elementary Schools to get kids interested. I think having Public Private partnerships is important. Not to interrupt but are you talking about specifically s. T. E. M. . S. T. E. M. If youre interested in specific cyber, get kids interested in that too really. Great. Thank you. Im also not a Cyber Security expert but im thrilled that my 15yearold twin girls are here in the audience hearing this. Their high school has a program that is partnered with u. S. Naval academy particularly on Cyber Security and i really want them to take it. These are your daughters, you say . Yes, sir. Please raise your hands so we can put pressure on you. No pressure. Were helping out. I would conquer with my colleagues here. Its important to really spark that interest in s. T. E. M. Fields early. The other thing is i think we need to provide mentoring because its not just getting the workforce out there. Its getting the future teachers and professors. This is back to a point that i made earlier which is we need to continue to get people to advance their education and be the mentors and mentor the future teachers as well as the future applications. Thank you. Im sorry. Im going to skip you. Maybe we can have a one on one dialogue later. I have to ask this other question which intrigues me because mr. Torres has repeatedly talked about the future grid or what the grid looks like in the future. Thats really tough to be clairvoyant, obviously. But im wondering what your thoughts are on the role that micro grids might play in making the grid more resilient and what does the micro grid of the future, what might that look like . Mr. Torres since youve talked about future grids, well start with you. So just to make sure everybody is on the same page a micro grid is essentially a grid that has its own generation, its own wires to move the electrons and its own loads to move those electrons and can connect and disconnect from the larger utility grid. I believe they do have their role. They dont need to be used everywhere. I foresee that the future grid would be some sort of a hybrid of centralized grid based with some decentralized micro grids especially for critical loads. Weve seen that theyve been very applicable where you have military installations, hospitals, key Industrial Areas and so on that may have lower reliability connection to the utility grid and where you may have some very sensitive types of loads, sensitive to disturbances in the grid. You really need to right fit it and right size it. Its not a ubiquitous solution. Unfortunately my time has expired. Thank you. Thank you for holding the hearing. I want to start with a shoutout to the grid innovation caucus that i cochair with my colleague from ohio. The purpose is to discuss policy and technology, but also to help educate members of congress and to get people excited about this issue here in congress because its important. We need to move forward on these things. Assistant secretary evans, weve heard a lot about how Artificial Intelligence, how important its benefits are including in the context of grid modernization and security. What role do you think it can play in improving the nations electric system . I think it has a critical role. Mr. Torres already highlighted some of specific things were talking about Going Forward. Taking the things that we know are going to happen and try to remove some of what is happening at a human level now that could be done by Artificial Intelligence, by machine learning. That is the area that we are really exploring so we can then look at higher analysis of security and also the resilience of being able to model the resilience in realtime. Is there a significant risk that adversaries could use ai to attack our system . My opinion of how to go forward for every great new innovation that we do and i believe mr. Torres also highlighted this, is that we also then have to evaluate what are the potential risks associated with that and engineer Preventive Solutions that we know could happen as we deploy those out. Thats the longer answer to yes we could do that, but we dont want to stifle innovation. We want to take advantage of those things and be able to use them and also make sure we have the right mitigations in place. Those sorts of attacks are going to happen whether we deploy a. I. Or not. Yes. Mr. Torres, do you want to comment on that . I concur with assistant secretary evans. I would add to it the fact that just about any tool, any weapon can be used for good or for bad. So this is why its an imperative for us to maintain that leadership in the advancements of these technologies so we are the ones that are using these for the right purpose and can actually deter any negative use or any attacks on these systems. Im concerned about the attack on march 5th on the utility system. There wasnt much damage done, but what would be the potential damage if attackers had access to the system, real access . The attack that you refer to was, i believe, a denial of Service Attack on the system of a utility out west. My understanding is that it basically blinded or the operators may have lost control or visibility from some of the devices. So the attack was on the supervisory control and acquisition system is used to monitor and control elements of the power grid. So if somebody were to gain access, they could potentially disrupt operation of the grid and maybe even cause the operator to make a mistake in operation. Well, with all the behind the meter devices and distributed resources, were facing increasing risk here, right . Theres the potential to increase the attack surface as we add more devices near the end users. This is where we do through the seds program at d. O. E. Under assistant secretary evans, we do have a road map to secure the connectivity down to the meter essentially so we try to minimize the risk back upstream to the utility. Thank you. What Site Specific geographic consideration are important to consider when deciding what type of Energy Storage system is the most appropriate for a particular location . Certainly there are geographic consideration when it comes to pump storage, Hydro Storage especially. You need large expansions of underground. When you talk about Battery Storage particularly, that can be scaled to behind peoples meters at the home, it can be grid scale, it can be commercial industrial applications. The biggest considerations that are not necessarily having to do with the technology itself in terms of its capabilities but the application that youre going to be using it for. So when you need to be in Rural Communities when coops are needing to use Energy Storage to offset the cost of transmission upgrades and distribution upgrades, then youll want to use a specific type of battery or other technology that can be longer duration. When youre talking about being up in the northeast, you need a longer duration storage type application for weeks, hours, weeks, even months when it comes to wintertime issues as well. The cost goes up pretty dra m dramatically after a couple of hours of usage of a storage system. Yes. I yield back. Thank you, chairman. Thank you so much to our witnesses for being here. As we consider how to get to a low or hopefully zero carbon future, we are increasingly contained by how to have a flexible enough grid that can accommodate these intermittent sources of power that fluctuate out of phase with where the load is. It is a really important, really critical issue and i am delighted to see this committee thinking seriously about those issues. We have a lot of ways we have to solve that. We can solve that through Market Mechanisms and transmission but i believe chief among those has to be grid scale storage. Thats why i was proud to introduce the promoting grid storage act of 2019. I want to thank the folks at esa for their support of it. One of the most important aspects of that bill is the creation of a Competitive Grant Program for Energy Storage. The Competitive Program is unique in that it would empower local entities to identify specific demonstration projects and compete for funds at the d. O. E. Instead of waiting for the d. O. E. To identify specific projects to fund. Are you aware of any Competitive Grant Programs for Energy Storage specifically at d. O. E. Or anywhere else across the federal government like the program put forward in section 6 of the pgsa . Not specifically of that type. Thats why weve been so strong in our support of the promoting grid storage act. Not only does it allow the market to participate in the selection of these types of projects, but it also puts skin in the game. So the Market Participants are also participating in putting their own Business Risks at this. So we think its going to accelerate the demonstration project success. Youve thankfully answered my second question as well of why that structure was helpful. In your opinion, does the grid modernization act in its current form do enough to empower local stakeholders to bring projects forward that best over come these informational barriers and lower the risk . It goes pretty far. Were really excited about this potential but there are a number of things that can be done to further this. One of them i think is very important. You had the conversation about resilience. It is for d. O. E. To support the investigation into how states can prove out Cost Effectiveness for resilience. This is an issue that i personally had after the derecho in 2011 where utilities can invest in reliability and there are metrics for that but they cannot invest in resilience because there arent the correct metrics to prove Cost Effectiveness. I think thats an important part of it. The other part is sections 4 and 6 of the promoting grid sections act could be promoted. Thank you. Im really excited by the committees work on the grid modernization act of 2014 but i am concerned it doesnt do enough. I live in illinois and you can see in the data we started to see an increase in co 2 emissions. Now were installing really inefficient but quick ramping gas generation. I completely agree with you in the fact that Energy Storage is really the major delay in stlg having this deployed on a major scale is how it fits within the regulatory construct and the energy Grid Integration itself. Its really a commercial question more than a technology question. I think the technology is ready to go. Thank you very much. I really appreciate your testimony. Mr. Foster. My colleague just mentioned the difficulty of sighting power lines. There are two components of that. Theres a big difficulty thats much worse as you approach cities but bad probably everywhere. The obvious solution to that is to bury power lines and that is hellishly expensive currently. Have people looked into Robotic Assembly of underground power lines . Is there really any hope to make a big dent in the cost . Are there technological approaches that right really lower the cost of buried power lines or has that pretty well been mined out . Anyone familiar with initiatives . I think youll still have the issue of having to get either eminent domain. Those that blooeelieve cance caused by electric power lines, if you cant see the line, that seems to bother them less and so on. It strikes me that if there is money to be squeezed out of the cost to bury power lines, that might be a good federal r d and demonstration initiative. The other one would be a legal mechanism. Theres a well documented drop in the real estate prices near high voltage power lines for part lly rational and partly i irrational reasons. If theres an existing rightofway and time to build a big power line, theres typically a big out cry. S if there was a Legal Framework that allowed those who are affected in terms of real estate value and impact to contribute to burying the power line, then there may be im not sure exactly what that would look like, whether you give someone were going to build this power line, its going to be expensive but its part of the real estate appreciation that you will see if you take an existing power line and bury it. That will cause everyones real estate value to rise. There may be a social contract thats a win all the way around, particularly as the power lines approach cities. But youre unaware of things like this. Hardening the grid by putting things like a dc overlay are very good ideas in principle and you have to get past the difficulty. There may be some opportunities for probably federal law to enable that sort of deal to be struck with the surrounding communities. Anyway. Id just like to make a couple comments on the best act, another piece of legislation that ive introduced as well having to do with just encouraging Energy Storage r d and demonstration projects. I guess thats been pretty well discussed. My apologies for having to jump back and forth between this and the Facebook Libra hearings. But is there anything that has not yet been settled on those lines that might be worth mentioning . Well, id just like to add that esa and a number of their associations have strongly endorsed the best act as an excellent opportunity. And we have partners in the senate. I think theres a good chance that its actually one of those rare combinations of things that is going to have a chance at getting through the legislative graveyard that were trying to populate as best we can in the house these days. But that may be an exception to that. We have hopes for a number of Energy Storage pieces of legislation including the best act and including the stand alone storage itc and a number of other pieces. My last thing, when you look at advanced Nuclear Technologies some of them have the ability to add storage to them. For example molten salt reactors so you could have the ability to if you have excess generation capacity, you could actually spike it up if you had a big storage tank and excess generation Storage Capacity. Is that being factored into the modeling and the cost incentives when people look at advanced nuclear, that some techniques have this and others dont . Theres been a lot of discussion in the department of energy about trying to incentivize techniques that had Storage Capacity of some kind . I cant speak to whats being counted in and not for the nuclear side but i can say for Energy Storage and the various technologies that this is one of the things were asking from d. O. E. Is the various applications for Energy Storage that it flattens out and indeed increases the efficiency of the grid overall. I guess im well over time now so ill yield back my negative balance of time. Thank you. Before we bring the hearing to a close, i want to thank our witnesses again for appearing before us today and sharing such great information. The record will remain open for two weeks for additional statements from the members and for any additional questions that the committee may have for the witnesses. The witnesses are now excused and the hearing is adjourned. Thank you. Tomorrow morning on cspan 3, acting Homeland Security secretary Kevin Mcaleenan will be testifying about the agencies family separation policy at the u. S. mexico border. That hearing gets underway at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. You can see it live here on cspan 3. Former special Counsel Robert Mueller is on capitol hill next week testifying in back to back hearings about possible obstruction of justice and abuse of power by President Trump and russian interference in the 2016 president ial election. Live all day coverage on wednesday july 24th starts at 8 30 a. M. Eastern. Watch live at cspan 3, online at cspan. Org or listen with the free cspan radio app. General scensus director st dillingham testified before the committee about Cyber Security concerns, misinformation on social media and the census bureaus efforts to make sure it does not undercut People Living in the country. I want to welcome our witnesses. Im hoping the separation between the witnesses doesnt indicate anything