- Brookhaven National Laboratory has been tasked to lead the development of a model for the U.S. electric grid
- The laboratory was chosen by the Department of Energy for the three-year research project
- The project aims to produce an AI system that can process 1 billion grid activity simulations per day
Brookhaven National Laboratory said Tuesday that it has been delegated by the Department of Energy to spearhead a three-year research effort aimed at building an advanced artificial intelligence model for the U.S. electric grid, part of the second phase of the department’s Genesis Mission initiative.
The award will fund development of a grid foundation model, or GridFM, which will be designed to process 1 billion simulations for adding new demand to the grid within a single day.
Who Are Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Collaborators for the GridFM Project?
The GridFM project brings together a large and varied roster of collaborators, including the National Laboratory of the Rockies, MIT, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Stony Brook University, Cornell University and the University of Texas at Arlington. Industry participants include GE Vernova Research, IBM Research, NVIDIA, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Accenture Federal Services, alongside consulting firm Alvarez and Marsal.
Utility and grid-operator partners span the New York Power Authority, Alabama Power, the Long Island Power Authority, National Grid, Con Edison, the New York Independent System Operators and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, plus Great River Energy and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Additional collaborators include LF Energy, the Advanced Energy Center, the Horizon Institute for Public Service.
More broadly, the GridFM effort operates as a community-driven initiative involving contributions from over 150 organizations across industry, academic and government sectors. Utilities involved in the project supply real-world operational data and system knowledge, while research institutions and technology firms contribute AI expertise and computing infrastructure. The open-source components of GridFM are managed in coordination with the Linux Foundation Energy.
What Are the Other Project Details of GridFM?
Hendrik Hamann, who serves as chief AI scientist for innovation, science and security at Brookhaven and holds a joint position at Stony Brook University, will serve as principal investigator on the effort.
The award is valued at $14.2 million, roughly $3.9 million of which will go directly to Brookhaven, with the remainder distributed among a wide network of partner organizations. DOE’s Office of Electricity is overseeing the funding, and the announcement was made in person at the laboratory by Assistant Secretary for the Office of Electricity Catherine Jereza.
Jereza framed the project as part of a broader push to apply AI toward strengthening the nation’s power infrastructure, saying it would give utility companies better tools to plan and run the grid more quickly, reliably and affordably as electricity demand climbs.
What Is the Extent of Brookhaven’s Participation in the Genesis Mission?
Brookhaven’s involvement in the Genesis Mission extends beyond this new award. In July, the DOE selected the laboratory to lead seven separate phase I Genesis Mission projects covering areas such as microelectronics, nuclear and high-energy physics, computational science and atmospheric research. The lab is also participating in 29 additional phase I projects headed by other national laboratories, universities and private companies.
