San Antonio's groundbreaking new energy innovation laboratory 'EPIcenter' will dig into ways to protect the electrical grid from disasters ranging from hurricanes to hacking, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
The EPIcenter plans to conduct a summit entitled 'Disaster Disabled, Resilience Reinvented' to come up with new ways to harden the electrical grid from threats which are becoming more and more common.
EPIcenter is encouraging technology, infrastructure, and software companies across the world to submit proposals that will be discussed by energy leaders at the event.
“EPIcenter is excited to demonstrate the connection between new energy and resiliency,” CEO Kimberly Britton said. “We look forward to announcing our speakers soon but this Call for Entries is a chance to find outstanding resilience-enabling products and services we may not otherwise know about.”
The EPIcenter, which is a project of CPS Energy, says with the world becoming more and more dependent on the Internet, ways must be found to harden the country's infrastructure to make sure it can survive the new range of threats that face it, from natural disasters to malicious hacking to the threat of a magnetic pulse or other weapon which could knock out electricity over a wide area.
This is the second Summit held by EPIcenter, which will move into permanent facilities at the old Mission Road power station on the city's south side.
The first, held last year, explored the possibilities and pitfalls of what is called the 'Internet of Things,' the move of connected devices into everything from our refrigerators to our clothing.