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ABOUT US

An innovative hub committed to strengthening the resilience of power infrastructure.

The U.S.-Canada Center on Climate-Resilient Western Interconnected Grid (WIRED Global Center) is a National Science Foundation Global Center that is funded jointly by National Science Foundation (award number 2330582) and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). The WIRED Global Center leads critical field of power grid resilience in an era of increasing climate challenges affecting the Western electrical grid. Spanning 136,000 miles, this intricate network, serving nearly 80 million people across two Canadian provinces and 11 Western U.S. states, faces climate-related impacts. Extreme weather disturbances, intensifying in frequency and severity, have rendered this critical infrastructure susceptible to disruption, risking essential services from health care to transportation.

With nearly $9 million in federal grants from the U.S. and Canadian governments, this interdisciplinary center pioneers solutions to fortify the Western Interconnection, safeguarding against floods, winds, droughts, and other climate-related events. This signifies a transformative force, uniting expertise, innovation, and collaboration to fortify the Western Interconnected Grid against climate-driven disruptions, ensuring a resilient energy landscape for generations to come.

Our Mission

Foster cross-border collaboration between communities and interdisciplinary teams to reimagine a resilient and equitable power grid for a sustainable and prosperous future.

Grid Resilience. Global Impact.

OUR GOALS

To enable power grids to anticipate and adapt to the increasing intensity of climate-driven extreme disturbances, we have four specific objectives:

Implement Use-Inspired Research

To establish the center as an impactful, use-inspired research hub in the field of power grid resiliency against climate-driven extreme disturbances.

Benefit Society

To facilitate the development of use-oriented innovation and technology transfer that benefits society.

Engage Community

To engage community knowledge holders as partners, valuing their insights and perspectives as essential to achieving success.

Inspire Next Generation

To build awareness, inspire policy, and develop workforce capacity by providing education and training opportunities for professionals and students.

OUR VALUES

Inclusion
We are committed to creating a center culture that is safe, inclusive, and values all backgrounds and perspectives. Fostering inclusion is key to scientific innovation and to our success. We encourage all individuals and groups to join our center.
Ethics
We uphold ethical scientific practice, rooted in honesty, integrity, and commitment to ensure reproducibility of our research results. The adherence to work ethics ensures that we can meaningfully contribute to advancing scientific knowledge.
Teamwork
Respect, honesty, and teamwork are at the core of our center’s culture. We recognize that we depend on contributions from many people. We win and lose, together.
Impact
Our goal is to create innovative technology solutions to the pressing real-world energy and infrastructure problems, which would ensure equitable access to energy resources and technology, and support communities in equitable transition to the new energy economy.