PNNL

Jeff Dagle manages several projects in the areas of transmission reliability and control system security for DOE-OE, the Department of Homeland Security, and other clients.

The National Academy of Engineering selected Jeff Dagle, Chief Electrical Engineer at PNNL, for its electricity resilience committee. Dagle is the sole national laboratory member of the committee, which is comprised of a dozen representatives from academia and industry. He leads a wide range of PNNL's grid modernization efforts related to transmission reliability and control system security.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability (DOE-OE) tasked the committee with preparing a report that recommends research and development solutions that will enhance resilience of the electricity grid. It isn't enough to simply add technology to the grid; the rubber meets the road when the grid uses those technologies to quickly recover itself and return to normal operations. According to Dagle, this is timely work.

"The grid has undergone radical changes in the last decade or so, and the country has made significant investments in research and development to upgrade its archaic structure to a smarter one. But now we really need to give thought to the resilience of the R&D," said Dagle.

Subject matter experts in the energy industry will present research and development ideas to the committee every couple of months; the committee's recommendations must be consensus in order to make it into the report, which Dagle says will take about a year to complete.