Welcome to BCIT’s CICL Lab!
The Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Lab (CICL) aims to provide researchers, educators, and utilities with the opportunity to conduct research, and take hands-on educational programs in critical energy infrastructure areas such as smart microgrids, digital substations, and power systems and also in critical infrastructure cybersecurity with CICL’s utility-grade, flexible, and cybersecure platform.
The CICL lab is now able to be accessed remotely through its recently developed Virtualized Experiential Learning Platform (VELP) so that trainees from all over Canada and worldwide will be able to get the same level of understanding and experience with physical assets from their homes using CICL’s advanced virtualization technologies such as digital twins, cloud-based monitoring, analysis, and optimization applications, as well as continuous threat detection.
Funded by Government of Canada’s Future Skills Centre and Canada’s Dept of National Defence, the lab has been built and upgraded at a total cost of $4.5 Million in partnership with Siemens, BC Hydro, RTDS Technologies, Schneider Electric, ABB, SEL, and other industrial partners.
Virtual Learning in Canada’s Infrastructure Sector
The Smart Microgrid Applied Research Team (SMART), and Dr. Moein Manbachi, SMART Project Leader, were awarded $1,569,460 by the Future Skills Centre for their project Virtual Learning in Canada’s Infrastructure Sector. This project aims to shift experiential learning to a virtual platform for those training to work on Canada’s critical utilities infrastructure. The onset of COVID-19 and the need for physical distancing has rendered such training programs difficult to offer, putting the security and safety of the nation’s utilities infrastructure at risk by depriving operators of a steady stream of trained people for this work.
