Insights from Annabelle Lee (EPRI)
Annabelle is a Principal Technical Executive in the Power Delivery and Utilization Sector of EPRI. She is the program manager for two DOE projects and is the lead for the Information Assurance project set at EPRI, focusing on security risk management, metrics, and architectures. She also has expertise in applied cryptography. Annabelle serves as a technical advisor to several DOE laboratory projects and to the North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB). Annabelle participates as a technical expert on an advisory committee to the European Commission on cybersecurity for the energy sector. The Energy Expert Cyber Security Platform — Expert Group (EECSP-EG) consists of 14 technical experts.
Annabelle’s experience comprises 40 years of technical experience in IT system design and implementation and over 25 years of cybersecurity specification development and testing. She began her career in private industry concentrating on IT systems specification, software testing and quality assurance.
Cybersecurity is now a crucial factor when discussing the future of the energy sector. Both energy and information & communication technologies are mutually essential and interdependent, and the importance of protecting and monitoring critical energy infrastructures is increasing. Florence School of Regulation firstly discussed cybersecurity’s growing importance on 24 March 2017, at the FSR Policy Workshop: Cybersecurity in the Energy Sector’. The discussion highlighted a lack of an adequate communication and educational training on data protection and privacy for end customers that also exposes households and businesses to significant risks that could otherwise be easily avoided and prevented.
One year later, the FSR will dig in deeper.
On Friday 4 May 2018, the School will host a new Policy Workshop, debating ‘The Economics of Cybersecurity for the Energy Sector: Towards Energy Regulation 4.0’.
The event will review the current state of thinking on the economics of cybersecurity for the energy sector; trying to identify how cybersecurity investments should be evaluated from an economic perspective and how their effectiveness measured.
It will also assess whether the current approach to the economic regulation of the energy sector is suitable for addressing cybersecurity and its costs, or whether a new regulatory paradigm is necessary to tackle the upcoming challenges. With this Workshop, the FSR intends to promote the development of a shared view on possible regulatory paths which can help the energy sector to enter smoothly in the Industry 4.0 age; and contributes to the implementation of the energy sector’s Digital Agenda.
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