Alaska

Remote regions of Alaska face challenges when it comes to reliable energy. Using ESnet, the Department of Energy’s sole high-performance networking user facility (headquartered at Berkeley Lab), researchers were able to connect a simulated microgrid of Cordova, Alaska, at one national lab with control systems at another. This type of “digital twin” simulation connects real-world systems with virtual models to test scenarios and guide decision making. The Alaska experiment was part of the Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES) project led by the National Laboratory of the Rockies, which seeks to identify solutions for region-level problems such as outages caused by extreme weather or a cyberattack.