GridBright launches GRIDEON Secure Grid Collaboration (SGC) As A Service to Help Utilities Share Sensitive Data Needed to Keep the Lights On

ALAMO, Calif.,

Essential to managing today’s and the future electric grid is data—its movement and security. GRIDEON developed by GridBright (gridbright.com) under an award from the US Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA-E) addresses this need.

It was created in collaboration with a team of cybersecurity and utility industry experts from BetterGrids Foundation (Bettergrids.org), Midcontinent Independent System Operator (misoenergy.org), and Mid-Carolina Electric Cooperative (mcecoop.com). Over 40 organizations across the grid value chain have contributed to defining the requirements for GRIDEON.

“MCEC needed to share critical data with a strategic partner. Internet and email were not sufficiently secure. For years the method was walking a USB key to the partner for exchange. GRIDEON is a better way,” says Keith Sturkie, VP of IT at MCEC. “GRIDEON improved our security posture and lowered our costs.”

GRIDEON is an open-source-based suite of easy-to-use cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, technologies, enablement and support services, and standards that provide the full set of capabilities required to instantiate any type of secure grid data exchange.

GRIDEON efficiently ensures secure and compliant grid data exchange among all-electric ecosystem participants encompassing the entire electric value chain from generation to consumers (prosumers) spanning business and real-time operations.

It accommodates the creation of multiple types of exchanges necessitated by the utility industry’s grid data sharing applications such as collaboration, real-time system integration, publication-subscriber, one-to-many, among just a few.

Secure Grid Collaboration is the second service established on GRIDEON. The first is the BetterGrids Grid Model Repository that is presently used in 45 countries. BetterGrids.org is a free library of curated, non-sensitive grid models shared voluntarily by grid researchers. It includes synthetic and anonymized grid models and uses a rigorous curation process to ensure data quality. AI tools for semantic and natural language searching allow researchers to find their desired test data easily.

Secure Grid Collaboration extends the GRIDEON service reach. It establishes core grid data exchange standards that drive cost efficiency and management efficacy for foundational exchange artifacts such as nondisclosure agreements (NDA) between counterparties. It provides the foundation for future process management and real time services in emergency management and DER integration and beyond.

It also implements the enabling processes for secure grid data exchanges such as participant registration and advanced encryption key services that support exchange operations, security, and compliance.

Girding these key elements is a support organization providing 24 x 7 help, operations, and technical support functions required by the operational nature of many of the exchanges a typical utility will implement.

Learn more at http://www.grideon.com/.