Our critical infrastructure systems are becoming more complex and, in many cases, more essential for meeting our basic needs. With this comes the potential for growing vulnerabilities due to both the evolving nature of threats and our increased dependence on these systems. In this session, we highlight some of these evolving threats related to climate change (and climate-induced extreme weather), cyber threats, and the roles that humans can play in compounding or mitigating such threats.

The Department of Energy Energy Improvements in Rural and Remote Areas (ERA) program is a new program in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) that provides funding for infrastructure projects that improve energy efficiency, resilience, and affordability in rural and remote communities. Applications are competitive and require strong Community Benefits Plans (CBPs) in order to win funding. Topics in this session include lessons learned from 2023 ERA applicants, a discussion of how to capture energy and environmental equity and justice metrics in applications, and Technical assistance and resources available for helping future ERA applicants to create meaningful and actionable CBPs.

Preparation through training and exercises are the lifeblood of infrastructure resilience. By regularly training and performing exercises, we can identify and mitigate risks, improve coordination and communication, and test our response plans. This gives us the best chance of weathering any threat, natural or man-made. This session will explore: training using virtual and augmented realities, at scale training and exercises, resources available to help, and bridging response efforts between local and regional response units.

The siting of nuclear infrastructure, such as power plants and waste disposal sites, has a significant impact on the communities in which it is located. This session will explore the perspectives of tribal nations on nuclear infrastructure siting. It will discuss the historical and cultural factors that influence tribal views on nuclear energy, as well as the specific concerns that tribal nations have about the siting of nuclear facilities.

This session is focused on federal, state, and local policymakers' role in guiding resilience enhancements of critical electric infrastructure. Policymakers play an essential role in understanding the threat landscape and encouraging utilities and government facilities to develop strategies and goals, weigh investment options, and prioritize resilience cost-effectively and equitably. Many decision-makers do not understand where to start, what process to follow, or how to build a business case for action. This session will discuss the latest research on resilience enhancements of critical electric infrastructure and best practices for implementing and valuing these enhancements. The session will also allow participants to learn about the tools and resources available to help them assess and address the risks to critical electric infrastructure from climate change and other hazards.

Resilience planning is the process of developing strategies to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. Historically marginalized and disadvantaged communities often receive the least investment in resilience planning efforts. With historic investments in resilience planning for these communities from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and other federal funding priorities, it is vital that communities and their advisors are able to hold equity and justice as first principles in resilience planning in order to secure real dollars for infrastructure investment. Topics this session will cover include: R&D challenges around quantifying equitable resilience outcomes, how to include principles like equity in resilience planning efforts, and a discussion of sourcing the definition of resilience directly from communities (i.e., effective community engagement).

No appointment needed! Meet more than 20 F1000 and ATI Consortia to learn about funding, membership and partnership opportunities in this fast-paced, speed dating format (5 minute meetings).

Part 1. The White House Subcommittee on Resilience Science and Technology (SRST) has developed a Grand Pathways Framework for community resilience capacity building. USACE is building a watershed resilience framework that draws from previous efforts and prioritizes application in low-capacity communities. This session will define watershed resilience from a systems perspective and discuss potential applications for building community resilience. Part 2. All-hazard disruptions and cascading effects on interdependent critical infrastructure in a region can have a significant impact on jurisdictions and US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) projects in the impacted region. The Disaster Resilience 3.0 Pilot (DSR3P) is a pilot project that was initiated in January 2023 to develop replicable processes that can be used by USACE, universities, non-profits, and jurisdictions to identify regional critical infrastructure vulnerabilities and potential disruptions. The project is also working to assist jurisdictions to understand and self-identify vulnerabilities to critical infrastructure and inform the community on resilience.

Part 1. John Garstka, a member of the Senior Executive Service (SES), is the Director for Cyber Warfare within the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Platform and Weapons Portfolio Management, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment will kick the session off with a discussion about Cyber as a Warfighting Domain and protecting our DoD systems from cyber threats. Topics will include evaluating, improving, and enforcing a culture of cybersecurity warfighting and accountability for cybersecurity and cyberspace operations. Part 2. This session will explore the lessons learned from protecting our national security systems from cyber threats. Topics will include the latest cyber threats, the challenges of protecting national security systems, and the latest strategies for mitigating cyber risks.

Executive Order 14008 directed all Federal agencies and departments to conduct physical climate risk vulnerability assessments on their key assets. Similarly, FERC has ordered NERC to engage investor-owned electric utilities in evaluating the preparedness of their electricity assets, and the SEC is laying the groundwork that will require similar reporting from all publicly traded companies in the United States. Once the risks are illuminated, every type of organization will look to engineering companies to swing into action. Engineering, procurement and construction companies, otherwise known as EPCs, and other engineering and construction firms, are on the front lines of the climate resilience battle. They know better than anyone the impacts climate change-induced stressors are putting on their clients’ assets, and because of that, are best positioned to recommend and often implement candidate resilience and adaptation options. This session will introduce critical infrastructure mini-case studies from the US Department of Energy as well as private sector and reveal the role of engineering in providing practical solutions to some incredibly daunting challenges, vulnerabilities and potential disruptions.

This session will discuss four different architecture efforts to improve ICS/OT security and resilience, supported by industry and the federal government. The goal is to highlight what these architectures do (and don’t do) to accelerate improvements in the security and resilience of critical infrastructure and to understand how these architectures are evolving and are being applied to ICS/OT-intense critical systems.

Are you interested in learning more about critical infrastructure systems and interdependencies? Do you want to hear from experts in the field? Do you want to network with other professionals? If so, then you should attend the Understanding Critical Infrastructure Systems and Interdependencies - Lighting Talks! This event will feature short presentations by experts on a variety of topics related to critical infrastructure systems and their interdependencies. You will learn about the different types of critical infrastructure, the threats they face, and the strategies for protecting them. You will also have the opportunity to network with other professionals who are interested in critical infrastructure. This is a great opportunity to learn from others, share your own ideas, and build relationships.

Join RISE Executive Director, Michael Wu, for a moderated panel discussion with senior leaders from the Department of Defense who are responsible for designing and implementing climate resilience policy across the Services. Attendees will hear first-hand from DoD climate and energy leaders about the latest energy and climate resilience initiatives, as well as opportunities for collaboration.

Extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and severity, resulting in outsized impacts on the electric grid. Distributed energy resources (DERs) are a critical tool for strengthening energy resilience in this volatile operating environment due to their flexibility and wide-ranging applications. This session will explore how innovative DER technologies are being deployed to improve disaster response capabilities and decrease outage time during extreme weather events. Attendees will hear from both DER technology solution providers and community end-users responsible for implementing these innovative tools.

This pitch event will showcase the latest innovations in cyber resilience for operational technology (OT). OT systems are critical to the operation of our nation's critical infrastructure, and they are increasingly under attack from cyber adversaries. This event will provide a platform for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to share their ideas on how to improve the cyber resilience of OT systems. The event will consist of a series of short pitches (5-7 minutes each) followed by a Q&A session. The pitches will be judged by a panel of experts, and the winner will be announced at the end of the event. The winner will be published in a peer-reviewed journal, The Journal of Critical Infrastructure Policy. Judges: Benjamin Blakely -Argonne National Laboratory, Nate Evans - Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Vivek Singh - National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Aleksandra Scalco -Naval Information Warfare Center

Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) are most effective when their operations are fully optimized and integrated with the electric grid. This session will review strategies for operating DERs that maximize their resilience potential by integrating them with the electric grid. Attendees will learn about specific strategies for DER operation and integration, including DER dispatch control and protection.

Turning a great idea into a thriving business is hard, especially in the competitive and dynamic cleantech sector. Gaining access to capital, hiring and retaining talent, and building business systems and processes are just a few of the innumerable challenges facing entrepreneurs. Luckily, there’s a network of incubators and accelerators dedicated to advancing clean and sustainable technologies on their paths to market. Learn from experts, leaders, and entrepreneurs who are making a difference in the clean energy transformation and how you can plug in.

In this panel discussion, WRI, BGE, and Highland will dive further into how electric school buses (ESBs) fleets can help to stabilize utilities’ grids in both the summer and winter, as well as illustrate the complexities of depot electrification and the required coordination needed to keep the grids balanced. Together, Sue Gander, WRI Director of Electric School Bus Initiative, Sam duPont, BGE Principal Business Program Manager of Transportation Electrification and Amy McGuire, Highland Director of Market Development will explain why ESBs are an ideal resource for community resilience amid a volatile climate and will share key results that underscore ESBs’ efficacy as grid resources, as well as their potential to scale vehicle-to-grid (V2G), vehicle-to-community (V2C), and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) opportunities in the future.

National Laboratories are playing an increasingly important role in the commercialization of new energy technologies, with world class facilities and expertise. Technologies coming from the National Laboratories have proven fundamental to the clean energy transition, and National Laboratories are collaborating with private sector innovators like never before. Learn how you can get involved from laboratory leaders and private sector partners.