Already today, the energy supply does not work without information and communication technologies (ICT). ICT enable the exchange of information between energy producers, consumers, substations and other parts of the system, monitor the state of the grid and raise alerts in case of problems. At the same time, digitalization bears risks like manipulation, cyberattacks or erroneous applications. The power system is a critical infrastructure (KRITIS). Hence, a blackout would lead to extensive consequences for society. That’s why digital energy infrastructures must be secure as well as securing. This means they must be able to deal with outages and attacks themselves while keeping the system functioning. What are the chances and challenges? Who are the main actors and which responsibilities do they have? What has to happen in regulations and operations? Those are the questions with which the ESYS working group “Resilience in Digitalized Energy Systems” deal.

The work is being funded by the project Energy Systems of the Future (ESYS) of the National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech). The interdisciplinary working group consisting of scientists and practitioners identify challenges of a digitalized energy system as well as actions to tackle those. Subsequently, options for actions for policy makers are developed to design the energy system in a resilient way. Guided by OFFIS an analysis and statement paper are prepared that analyze the digitalized energy system and specify the options for actions, respectively. Moreover, the (intermediate) results are discussed during presentations or expert discussions.