Cyber Resilient Energy Delivery Consortium (CREDC)

Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy

PI: David Nicol
Co-PIs: William Sanders and Peter Sauer

CREDC, a $28.1 million consortium, is advancing security and resiliency in the cyber support infrastructure as a key enabler of Energy Delivery System (EDS) resiliency. The cyber security of energy delivery systems, such as power grids and oil and gas (O&G) refinery and pipeline operations, has been the subject of media attention and been addressed in legislation, standards, and executive actions. However, there is growing awareness that we must also explicitly ensure cyber resiliency in order for an EDS to maintain critical functions in the presence of disruptive events, in particular those arising from attacks on the cyber infrastructure.

We are addressing project objectives through research and outreach activities at the partner institutions, working in close collaboration with industry (utilities, O&G asset owners, and equipment vendors). The CREDC model explicitly creates a pipeline that generates research results and takes them through to evaluation and deployment of prototypes in industrial settings, with a handoff to the sectors through licensing, startups, and open-source mechanisms. CREDC is impacting foundational science and engineering approaches to EDS cyber security and resiliency, will impact practice through provisioning of industry-vetted solutions to near-term and far-term problems, and will impact the practice of education and workforce training in EDS cyber security and resiliency.

An overarching theme of CREDC is security and resiliency mechanisms that operate non-intrusively without negatively impacting EDS operation, and are viable from the point of view of legal constraints, cost effectiveness, maximal impact, and industrial acceptance.

CREDC was announced in October 2015. Learn more at http://cred-c.org.