The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), on behalf of the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) Risk Management Tools and Technologies (RMT) program, is seeking applications under this Funding Opportunity Announcement to advance cybersecurity tools and technologies specifically designed to reduce cyber risks to energy delivery infrastructure. This effort will lead to next generation tools and technologies not available today that will become widely adopted throughout the energy sector to reduce a cyber incident disruption to energy delivery. The energy sector includes electricity and oil and natural gas delivery systems. Proposed solutions to this Announcement need to support and ensure a more secure, resilient, and reliable energy delivery system through targeted improvements to one or more of the following energy sector processes:

1. Electricity generation, transmission, or distribution (including renewables, energy management systems, and electric vehicles, etc.)
2. Oil and natural gas production, refining, storage or distribution

Both concept papers and full applications will be utilized during the competitive selection/award process. Please note that applicants who do not submit a concept paper cannot submit a full application. To further the goals of this FOA, each applicant must submit a commercialization plan that includes plans for technology maturation, technology licensing, and U.S. Manufacturing commitments. The plans must encompass both invention and copyright licensing to commercialize technology developed under this FOA, including any background intellectual property (IP) necessary to use the IP developed under the FOA.

This Announcement includes six (6) Topic Areas.

• Topic Area 1 – Automated Cyberattack Prevention and Mitigation
• Topic Area 2 – Security and Resiliency by Design Topic Area 3 – Authentication Mechanisms for Energy Delivery Systems
• Topic Area 4 – Automated Methods to Discover and Mitigate Vulnerabilities
• Topic Area 5 – Cybersecurity through Advanced Software Solutions
• Topic Area 6 – Integration of New Concepts and Technologies with Existing Infrastructure