This is particularly important to National Critical Functions (NCF) that support essential community lifelines services (basic needs like emergency services, urgent healthcare, and food/water).
These technologies also should be capable of working with on-site renewable power generation including alternative energy sources such as solar Photovoltaics (PV) arrays and small-scale wind power or operating as part of a virtual power plant or similar concept and be able to coordinate with other distributed energy resources.
This Challenge is part of the DHS effort to implement a proactive approach to climate change adaptation and resilience. This is the second in a series of DHS prize competitions to address hazards posed by climate change. This Challenge will support DHS’s mission on climate change resilience and adaptation, and work with the energy sector and other critical infrastructure owners and operators to find solutions for back-up power generation during a disaster.
The Reason Why:
Most Americans may not think of critical infrastructure on a regular basis—that is, until it is not working. A power outage during a storm or limited access to healthcare facilities after a ransomware attack are real life reminders of the role critical infrastructure plays in daily lives. Keeping the nation’s critical infrastructure and essential services safe and secure is important to our national security, economy, and overall way of life. Critical infrastructure spans everything from telecommunications and chemical facilities to local healthcare providers and financial institutions and much more. Critical infrastructure is the backbone of many essential services, and all infrastructure is dependent on power to function well. Critical infrastructure and its supporting systems keep our country and our economy running.
Much goes into securing our critical infrastructure and understanding the impacts of climate change is a major consideration. One of the key components is ensuring that anchor institutions, or essential community service provider facilities continue to function even during a power disruption. Promoting national resilience against the many threats associated with climate change is a DHS priority. Climate change will increase the likelihood of power outages nationwide. Depending on what type of facilities experience a power outage, the implications of a power failure can endanger lives and safety of Americans. Critical facilities that support community essential services often rely solely on electricity for power and lack adequate on-site power generation and energy storage to operate during a power outage.
Fossil fuel-powered emergency (back-up) generators are the most commonly used solutions to supply backup power during facility power disruptions. Most fossil fuel-powered back-up generators run on gas, diesel, natural gas, or propane, all of which have debilitating effects on the climate, producing substantial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, environmental and noise pollution that impacts community public safety, health, and environmental security, and have fuel delivery and storage requirements that pose additional safety concerns, especially under extreme weather conditions. Battery-powered storage has emerged as an alternative to fossil fuel generators offering a variety of societal benefits such as reducing utility bill payments, storing energy from solar panels for later use, and providing back-up power during limited power disruptions. Significant issues exist with battery solutions such as supply-chain and manufacturing risks, reliability, cost, and end-of life considerations that may impact a stakeholders’ willingness or ability to deploy them, and energy storage capacity limitations (12-24 hours of backup power). This also includes:
• Reliance on foreign and volatile supply-chains for extraction of materials and manufacturing components and systems
• Safety and reliability concerns stemming from fire and explosion risks associated with these systems
• Stationary, energy storage systems that compete with rapidly growing electrified transportation sector for battery materials and components such as materials used in cells
• Emissions and waste produced over the lifetime of systems spanning from materials extraction through end-of-life disposal
• Non-ideal solution long duration storage (10+ hours) due to high cost or limited technical capacity with existing consumer battery-powered backup solutions.
These issues are especially acute for owners and operators that are responsible for providing and maintaining critical societal services. In addition, the U.S. will benefit from clean energy storage solutions that can overcome key challenges such as sourcing minerals and materials that are commonly available in the United States (U.S.) developing highly reliable systems that minimize safety concerns and align with decarbonization and emission reduction goals.
