NSF Engines Development Award: Advancing smart grid technologies in Pacific Northwest (OR, ID, WA)

Award ID: 2307858

This Regional Engine Development Award is focused on achieving energy equity and prosperity through an ecosystem characterized as Smart, EQUitable, INteroperable, and Secure. The SEQUINS mission is to become a hub of regional innovation by coordinating and connecting the activities of academic institutions, new and established businesses, risk capital, and governments across the Pacific Northwest. This region is ideally positioned to create transformative, industry-defining innovations in the electric power sector that are of national significance. Within the region is a diverse range of urban and rural communities that exhibit favorable conditions for deploying renewable energy and have the underused capacity for consumer-participation programs. SEQUINS partners will innovate smart energy products and services based on the principle that technology must be dependable and safe. Under a common socio-technical framework, namely interoperable smart grid architectures built around cyber-physical security innovations, that provide resilience and security of electrical infrastructure while ensuring equity, privacy, and trust. The SEQUINS team is an interdisciplinary group of 31 partners across the Pacific Northwest. Member organizations represent the cybersecurity and electric power industries, utility customers, regional governments, higher education institutions, cutting-edge researchers, impacted stakeholders, and the entrepreneurial community. Leadership partners include Portland State University, Oregon State University, the University of Oregon, QualityLogic, Galois, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. SEQUINS will promote development and innovation within the ecosystem through five core activities: 1) entrepreneurship and business development, 2) use-inspired research and development, cyber-physical security, and end-user research, 3) interoperability and standardization, 4) consulting, advocacy, and policy support, 5) and workforce development. These activities will foster a smart grid technology ecosystem growth that enables large-scale participation based on open communication protocols, customer-driven transactions, privacy protection, state-of-the-art cybersecurity, and open-to-all practices. SEQUINS will convene stakeholders to translate activities into practice through four phases: Discovery - data-driven investigation of regional capacities, discover barriers and drivers; Problem Formulation - identify long-term strategic goals for closing capacity gaps, identify metrics for tracking progress towards goals; Design - engage in a use-inspired, pragmatic search for solutions that close gaps and create movement towards achieving strategic goals; and Selection - create a roadmap that selects, prioritizes, and strategically aligns the solution proposals, then plan the work structures and processes needed for their implementation. This Regional Engine Development Award will facilitate coordination between research, entrepreneurship, industry, capital, and government to scope a roadmap for an equitable smart grid across the Pacific Northwest. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Program Director: Hina Mehta