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Contract Opportunity

TECHNOLOGY LICENSING OPPORTUNITY

Safety Instrumented System (SIS) for Extreme Fast Charging (XFC) Infrastructure

A new integrated system to prevent injury and damage to electric vehicles and charging infrastructure.

Opportunity: Idaho National Laboratory (INL), managed and operated by Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC (BEA), is offering the opportunity to enter into a license or collaborative research agreement to commercialize the SIS XFC system. This technology transfer opportunity is part of a dedicated effort to convert government-funded research into job opportunities, businesses, and, ultimately, an improved way of life for the American people.

Overview: Electric vehicle (EV) usage in the US and worldwide is growing steadily. With the increased prevalence of EVs, a high-power (fast) charging infrastructure is needed. XFC vendors are developing and deploying systems that include some comprehensive safety features for protecting EV owners and electric vehicles. However, many safety features can be bypassed or manipulated via a cyber-attack. The EV charging industry needs to develop systems further to actively monitor an XFC unit to detect and prevent such malicious manipulation. XFC systems are susceptible to cyber intrusion and attack and, as such, pose a significant threat to grid security and stability as well as the personal safety of EV owners.

Description: Researchers at Idaho National Lab have designed a prototype system (hardware and software) integrated with XFC systems to monitor for cyber intrusion and manipulation and react in real time while notifying XFC operators to prevent injury or damage. This project analyzed XFC systems and determined the number of High Consequence Event (HCE) scenarios that can result in issues with grid stability, theft of personal information, and hazardous conditions for XFC users (safety). The system monitors the XFC for proper operations (logic), cyber intrusion, manipulation, and grid stability issues. This new security architecture flags events as Warnings, Alerts, or Errors so SIS and XFC operators can respond with proper mitigations.

Benefits:

• Enables the creation of a more secure and resilient XFC infrastructure


• Protects EV users from injury and property damage caused by XFC cyber-intrusions

Applications:

• Security for Extreme Fast Charging (XFC) infrastructure

Development Status: TRL 4, system has been validated in a laboratory environment.

IP Status: Provisional Application No. 63/364,469, “Safety Instrumented System for Extreme Fast Charging Infrastructure and Related Methods,” BEA Docket No. BA-1359.

Additional Information:

A video can be found at the following link: https://www.energy.gov/ceser/articles/doe-ceser-leadership-attends-white-house-ev-cybersecurity-forum

INL seeks to license the above intellectual property to a company with a demonstrated ability to bring such inventions to the market. Exclusive rights in defined fields of use may be available. Added value is placed on relationships with small businesses, start-up companies, and general entrepreneurship opportunities.

Please visit Technology Deployment’s website at https://inl.gov/inl-initiatives/technology-deployment for more information on working with INL and the industrial partnering and technology transfer process.

Companies interested in learning more about this licensing opportunity should contact Andrew Rankin at td@inl.gov.

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