There’s a lot of untapped potential in our homes and vehicles that could be harnessed to reinforce local power grids and make them more resilient to unforeseen outages, a new study shows.

In response to a cyber attack or natural disaster, a backup network of decentralized devices — such as residential solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles, heat pumps, and water heaters — could restore electricity or relieve stress on the grid, MIT engineers say.

Such devices are “grid-edge” resources found close to the consumer rather than near central power plants, substations, or transmission lines. Grid-edge devices can independently generate, store, or tune their consumption of power. In their study, the research team shows how such devices could one day be called upon to either pump power into the grid, or rebalance it by dialing down or delaying their power use.

In a paper appearing this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the engineers present a blueprint for how grid-edge devices could reinforce the power grid through a “local electricity market.” Owners of grid-edge devices could subscribe to a regional market and essentially loan out their device to be part of a microgrid or a local network of on-call energy resources.

In the event that the main power grid is compromised, an algorithm developed by the researchers would kick in for each local electricity market, to quickly determine which devices in the network are trustworthy. The algorithm would then identify the combination of trustworthy devices that would most effectively mitigate the power failure, by either pumping power into the grid or reducing the power they draw from it, by an amount that the algorithm would calculate and communicate to the relevant subscribers. The subscribers could then be compensated through the market, depending on their participation.

The team illustrated this new framework through a number of grid attack scenarios, in which they considered failures at different levels of a power grid, from various sources such as a cyber attack or a natural disaster. Applying their algorithm, they showed that various networks of grid-edge devices were able to dissolve the various attacks.

The results demonstrate that grid-edge devices such as rooftop solar panels, EV chargers, batteries, and smart thermostats (for HVAC devices or heat pumps) could be tapped to stabilize the power grid in the event of an attack.

“All these small devices can do their little bit in terms of adjusting their consumption,” says study co-author Anu Annaswamy, a research scientist in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. “If we can harness our smart dishwashers, rooftop panels, and EVs, and put our combined shoulders to the wheel, we can really have a resilient grid.”

The study’s MIT co-authors include lead author Vineet Nair and John Williams, along with collaborators from multiple institutions including the Indian Institute of Technology, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and elsewhere.

Power boost

The team’s study is an extension of their broader work in adaptive control theory and designing systems to automatically adapt to changing conditions. Annaswamy, who leads the Active-Adaptive Control Laboratory at MIT, explores ways to boost the reliability of renewable energy sources such as solar power.

“These renewables come with a strong temporal signature, in that we know for sure the sun will set every day, so the solar power will go away,” Annaswamy says. “How do you make up for the shortfall?”

The researchers found the answer could lie in the many grid-edge devices that consumers are increasingly installing in their own homes.

“There are lots of distributed energy resources that are coming up now, closer to the customer rather than near large power plants, and it’s mainly because of individual efforts to decarbonize,” Nair says. “So you have all this capability at the grid edge. Surely we should be able to put them to good use.”

While considering ways to deal with drops in energy from the normal operation of renewable sources, the team also began to look into other causes of power dips, such as from cyber attacks. They wondered, in these malicious instances, whether and how the same grid-edge devices could step in to stabilize the grid following an unforeseen, targeted attack.

Attack mode

In their new work, Annaswamy, Nair, and their colleagues developed a framework for incorporating grid-edge devices, and in particular, internet-of-things (IoT) devices, in a way that would support the larger grid in the event of an attack or disruption. IoT devices are physical objects that contain sensors and software that connect to the internet.

For their new framework, named EUREICA (Efficient, Ultra-REsilient, IoT-Coordinated Assets), the researchers start with the assumption that one day, most grid-edge devices will also be IoT devices, enabling rooftop panels, EV chargers, and smart thermostats to wirelessly connect to a larger network of similarly independent and distributed devices. 

The team envisions that for a given region, such as a community of 1,000 homes, there exists a certain number of IoT devices that could potentially be enlisted in the region’s local network, or microgrid. Such a network would be managed by an operator, who would be able to communicate with operators of other nearby microgrids.

If the main power grid is compromised or attacked, operators would run the researchers’ decision-making algorithm to determine trustworthy devices within the network that can pitch in to help mitigate the attack.

The team tested the algorithm on a number of scenarios, such as a cyber attack in which all smart thermostats made by a certain manufacturer are hacked to raise their setpoints simultaneously to a degree that dramatically alters a region’s energy load and destabilizes the grid. The researchers also considered attacks and weather events that would shut off the transmission of energy at various levels and nodes throughout a power grid.

“In our attacks we consider between 5 and 40 percent of the power being lost. We assume some nodes are attacked, and some are still available and have some IoT resources, whether a battery with energy available or an EV or HVAC device that’s controllable,” Nair explains. “So, our algorithm decides which of those houses can step in to either provide extra power generation to inject into the grid or reduce their demand to meet the shortfall.”

In every scenario that they tested, the team found that the algorithm was able to successfully restabilize the grid and mitigate the attack or power failure. They acknowledge that to put in place such a network of grid-edge devices will require buy-in from customers, policymakers, and local officials, as well as innovations such as advanced power inverters that enable EVs to inject power back into the grid.

“This is just the first of many steps that have to happen in quick succession for this idea of local electricity markets to be implemented and expanded upon,” Annaswamy says. “But we believe it’s a good start.”

This work was supported, in part, by the U.S. Department of Energy and the MIT Energy Initiative.

© Credit: Courtesy of the researchers

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, right, tours the downtown business district of Pacific Palisades as the Palisades Fire continued to burn on Jan. 8, 2025, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Governors and state legislatures may have to bolster their natural disaster response and recovery efforts in the coming years as President Donald Trump looks for ways to shift the federal government’s role onto states.

Trump, who proposed doing away with the Federal Emergency Management Agency altogether while on a tour of disaster scenes in North Carolina and California, has since established a 20-member committee via executive order to review the agency and propose ways to overhaul its work.

The fate of the National Flood Insurance Program, managed by FEMA and relied on by more than 4.7 million homeowners, will also be up in the air as the process gets underway.

“I think, frankly, FEMA is not good,” Trump said in North Carolina on his Jan. 24 visit. “I think when you have a problem like this, I think you want to go and — whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican governor, you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time calling FEMA.”

Trump said he planned to recommend that “FEMA go away and we pay directly — we pay a percentage to the state.”

“But the state should fix this,” Trump said. “If the state did this from the beginning, it would have been a lot better situation.”

‘Full-scale review’ for FEMA

Trump’s executive order states that “Americans deserve an immediate, effective, and impartial response to and recovery from disasters.”

“FEMA therefore requires a full-scale review, by individuals highly experienced at effective disaster response and recovery, who shall recommend to the President improvements or structural changes to promote the national interest and enable national resilience,” the executive order says.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will co-chair the 20-member group. The White House did not respond to a question as to when Trump would name the other members.

The council is supposed to release a report later this year comparing FEMA’s response to various natural disasters with how the state affected by the emergency responded. The report is also expected to include how states responded to natural disasters before then-President Jimmy Carter signed in executive order in 1979 establishing FEMA.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said during a press conference Monday that he supports reviewing how FEMA operates, but he stopped short of eliminating the agency.

“In my experience, it is very often the case that local workers, people who are working through FEMA, do a pretty good job,” Johnson said. “But often, it’s the leadership at the top that can affect the outcome of how a disaster is handled.”

Johnson said no department or agency should be considered out of bounds for evaluation as Trump looks to “make the government more efficient and effective” and Republican lawmakers look for ways “to limit the size and scope of government.”

“FEMA has been a partner, but they probably could be a better partner,” Johnson said.

Let states run response

Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said Monday that Trump’s preferred approach would be to let states run their own emergency response and be reimbursed with federal dollars.

“FEMA is frustrating at times,” Graham told reporters in Columbia, S.C. “I’d like to make it easier to help people with disaster relief.”

Graham expects anything that comes out of the study to land somewhere in the middle — not completely eliminating the federal agency but cutting through some of the red tape.

“If you want to look at FEMA, reshape FEMA, to make it more effective, count me in,” Graham said.

Congress appropriated $25.3 billion for FEMA in the last full-year spending bill for the agency, which was $72.9 million less than its previous funding level and $267.7 million less than then-President Joe Biden’s budget request, according to a House GOP summary.

Lawmakers provided an additional $29 billion for FEMA’s disaster relief fund in an emergency spending bill that Congress approved in late December.

Democratic Governors Association national press secretary Devon Cruz wrote in a statement the GOP was “floating dangerous ideas.”

“When natural disasters hit, Democratic governors have been a leading example of putting politics aside, and helping families rebuild and recover,” Cruz wrote. “Now, Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans are shamelessly politicizing disaster aid, and floating dangerous ideas that would make it harder to help families rebuild their homes, schools, and communities. This is just the latest example of the growing contrast between Republican-led dysfunction in D.C. and Democratic governors getting real results in their states every day.”

The National Governors Association declined to comment on how the potential changes would affect states and their budgets. The National Conference of State Legislatures and Republican Governors Association did not respond to requests for comment.

Billions in federal dollars sent to states

FEMA has an interactive state-by-state breakdown of how much the federal government has spent on natural disaster response and recovery since 2017, though it doesn’t include the emergency funding for COVID-19.

The webpage shows how much FEMA has spent to help each state or territory recover from emergencies, as well as how much the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior and Transportation have spent.

The webpage shows the departments and agencies have allocated about $250 billion on the natural disasters covered in the data, with significant amounts going to red states that backed Trump in the presidential election and are predominantly represented by GOP lawmakers in Congress.

Speaker Johnson’s home state of Louisiana, for example, has been allocated $19.3 billion in funding, with $11.5 billion of that from FEMA.

South Dakota, home to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, has been allocated nearly $400 million from the federal government, with FEMA accounting for $275.6 million of that total. 

Florida, which has borne the brunt of several hurricanes and tropical storms during the years covered, was allocated $29.5 billion in federal disaster assistance, with $19 billion of that from FEMA.

South Carolina Daily Gazette senior reporter Jessica Holdman contributed to this report.