The idea is to "anticipate, absorb and recover from events that cause grid outages, such as extreme weather or a cyberattack," said Ashley Pilipiszyn, GRIP project lead and a Ph.D. student at Stanford University. The project is co-led by the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, which is operated by Stanford University, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, managed by the University of California. Like many such initiatives focused on artificial intelligence and climate change, the public and private sectors are involved in supplying research and funds. In the case of a failure caused by a winter storm, for example, Ms. Pilipiszyn said that a smart grid could prioritize different electrical loads into islands and isolate faults, ensuring, say, that a nursing home or hospital receives top priority. GRIP is a three-year project, and field demonstrations are expecting to be up and running by the end of 2020, Ms. Pilipiszyn said.