New Tennessee Energy Research Project Features Quantum Technology Component

The Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have established the Collaborative for Energy Resilience and Quantum Science, a new joint research project to tap Chattanooga’s energy and communications infrastructure for technological developments to upgrade the national power grid. 

Also designed to contribute to quantum technology commercialization, the project builds upon the EPB-ORNL partnership established in 2014 for testing new energy technologies.

The EPB-ORNL partnership, along with Los Alamos National Laboratory and Qubitekk, earlier demonstrated quantum cybersecurity technologies using a fiber optic network linking some of EPB’s electric substations.

The Chattanooga power grid has also become an extension of the ORNL research system as the lab’s scientists can participate in EPB’s “Engineering Scholars in Residence” for collaborative research work.

The partnership had previously undertaken 30 projects, including research on developing advanced energy models for optimized power distribution and predictive algorithms to detect potential energy equipment malfunction for early remedies, ORNL said. 

The Department of Energy, through its Recovery Act stimulus package, partly funded the partnership.

According to Stephen Streiffer, ORNL director, combining EPB and the laboratory’s capabilities “can substantially advance research and move it toward practical application and commercialization.”