Publications

Distributed Energy Resource Cybersecurity Standards Development [Final Report]

Johnson, Jay; Onunkwo, Ifeoma O.; Saleem, Danish S.; Hupp, William H.; Peterson, Jordan P.; Cryar, Ryan C.

Currently, the solar industry is operating with little application-specific guidance on how to protect and defend their systems from cyberattacks. This 3-year Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office-funded project helped advance the distributed energy resource (DER) cybersecurity state-of-the-art by (a) bolstering industry awareness of cybersecurity concepts, risks, and solutions through a webinar series and (b) developing recommendations for DER cybersecurity standards to improve the security performance of DER products and networks. Drafting DER standards is a lengthy, consensus-based process requiring effective leadership and stakeholder participation. This project was designed to reduce standard and guide writing times by creating well-researched recommendations that could act as a starting place for national and international standards development organizations. Working within the SunSpec/Sandia DER Cybersecurity Workgroup, the team produced guidance for DER cybersecurity certification, communication protocol standards, network architecture s, access control, and patching. The team also led subgroups within the IEEE P 1547.3 Guide for Cybersecurity of Distributed Energy Resources Interconnected with Electric Power Systems committee and pushed a draft to ballot in October 2021.