Fifty-nine rural Alaska villages get federal money to defend their power systems from hackers

The power systems serving 59 rural Alaska villages are getting $1.73 million in federal money to defend against cyberattacks.

Some of those systems are very small. AVEC engineer Bailey Gamble told the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference in May that individual village systems range from average loads just under 100 kilowatts down to villages averaging 4 to 5 kilowatts.

The Department of Energy awarded the money to Alaska Village Electric Cooperative of Anchorage under a two-year cooperative agreement that opened Aug. 15 and runs to 2028. AVEC is putting in $91,084, about 5 percent of the $1.82 million total. The award record says only that the money funds system-wide cybersecurity improvements.

It comes from a $250 million cybersecurity program the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act created for rural cooperatives and other small utilities. The Energy Department has said the program prioritizes utilities with limited cybersecurity resources, or with assets critical to bulk-power reliability.

AVEC serves about 31,000 people across those 59 communities, William Stamm said at the same conference — a population comparable to Juneau or Fairbanks, drawing roughly a third of the load.