Jake Gentle is a Senior Program Manager and Supervisor for Idaho National Laboratory (INL). As a formally trained Power Systems Engineer, Gentle is INL’s Laboratory Relationship Manager to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Electricity’s Grid Systems & Components programs and the Wind Energy Technologies Office. He leads teams through the development and commercialization of technologies, providing technical oversight and coordinating innovative, state-of-the-art solutions for the following DOE offices: the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Office of Electricity, and the Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response Office. He also assists several electric power industry partners. Gentle currently serves as the Smart Electric Power Alliance Cybersecurity Working Group Co-Chair and is an RE+ Core Education Committee member for 2025. 

In these roles, Gentle has helped develop and lead the commercialization of five technologies that enable a fundamental shift to modern, digitally connected electric grids that must withstand cyberattacks, variable generation and load, and extreme natural disasters. In 2009, Gentle led a research team that created the General Line Ampacity State Solver (GLASS), a grid-enhancing technology that allows utilities to use 10 to 40% above their current transmission-line capacity. Now, GLASS is a key component used during extreme power demand events, such as hurricanes and wildfires, helping route power where it’s needed most. 

Since developing GLASS, Gentle has contributed to the commercialization of four additional technologies that combine software and hardware to increase grid resiliency and security. One of those technologies is Master State-awareness Estimator (MSE), a methodology that processes and reports the real-time status of a power system and can prevent cyberattacks in a transmission and distribution grid. MSE integrates distributed state estimation and communications-traffic analysis for high-confidence, independent analyses of substations. By differentiating cyberattacks from benign anomalies, his technology represents a significant step forward in supervising and protecting the electric grid. 

Individually, the technologies Gentle helped develop each represent a significant advancement in modernizing electric grids. Together, they signal a fundamental shift to more secure, digitally connected electric grids. The commercialization processes for these technologies included early-stage R&D, Energy I-Corps, a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), and the Technology Commercialization Fund. To develop industry and government standards, the development teams worked with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and its international counterpart Le Conseil international des grands réseaux électriques (CIGRE). 

As Gentle himself puts it, “These five technologies are all working toward one solution: helping make our power grid and critical infrastructure more reliable and resilient to cyberattacks and natural hazards.” From the beginning, Gentle and his fellow researchers engaged not just with industry, academia, state and local governments, and other federal laboratories, but also with national and international regulators, engineering standards organizations, and trade associations.