Artificial Intelligence
From situational awareness to threat analysis and detection, online signals to system assurance, PNNL is advancing the frontiers of scientific research and national security by applying artificial intelligence to scientific problems.
Electric Grid Modernization
PNNL is integrating advances in data analytics, deep learning, high-performance computing, cybersecurity, and advanced controls to improve future electric power system operations, planning, resiliency, flexibility, and security—towards a modern, reliable, and secure grid.
Grid Energy Storage
Redox. Vanadium. When combined with “batteries,” these highly technical words describe an equally daunting goal: development of energy storage technologies to support the nation’s power grid. Energy storage neatly balances electricity supply and demand. Renewable energy, like wind and solar, can at times exceed demand. Energy storage systems can store that excess energy until electricity production drops and the energy can be deposited back to the power grid.
Energy Resiliency
In collaboration with industry experts and the research community, PNNL scientists and engineers work every day toward an affordable, reliable, resilient and secure energy future.
Grid Architecture
Grid architecture is a connected body of work that has found ever-increasing use in the electric utility industry, not just in the United States, but worldwide. For example, the Electric Power Research Institute has adopted the PNNL grid architecture approach as the basis for its utility modernization road maps. PNNL's approach is utilized by electric utilities and utility regulatory commissions and boards in dozens of states, with uptake in other countries worldwide. Grid Architecture helps stakeholders understand the issues of grid modernization from a structural standpoint and provides principles and reference models that they can adopt and then adapt to their unique circumstances.
Grid Cybersecurity
PNNL supports the U.S. Department of Energy’s cybersecurity goal of strengthening today’s energy delivery systems and creating more resilient, self-defending energy systems for the future. With more than 100 technical experts focused on cybersecurity infrastructure research and solutions, PNNL has been advancing the reliability and security of the nation's power system for more than a decade.
Energy Storage
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is speeding the development and validation of next-generation energy storage technologies to enable widespread decarbonization of the energy and transportation sectors through innovation and collaboration.
Emergency Response
As a national laboratory in service to the nation, PNNL is called upon to support grid-related emergency response. PNNL develops tools to help the energy sector better anticipate and protect against emergencies, as well as respond when they do happen.
Grid Integration, Controls, and Architecture
PNNL is leading research efforts to integrate, control, and fully utilize energy storage technologies as part of a modern, decarbonized electric grid.