Funding worth $30 million (£18.7m) has been awarded to 11 projects in the US for the development of new technologies to protect the nation’s electric grid and oil and gas industry from cyber attacks.

With support from the Energy Department, energy sector organisations in California, Georgia, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington State will develop new systems and services for a more resilient energy delivery control systems. They are designed and operated specifically to control the physical processes that help deliver continuous and reliable power.

The projects, which combine expertise in power system engineering and cyber security, will include testing of new products to demonstrate their effectiveness and interoperability.

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said: “Keeping the nation’s energy flowing is vital to the safety and well-being of Americans, our economic prosperity and modern society as a whole. To meet the challenges of today’s evolving cyber landscape, we must continue investing in innovative, state-of-the-art technologies.”

The Energy Department has invested more than $100 million (£62.4m) in cyber security research and development through awards and funding provided to industry, universities and national laboratories.

Earlier this year a British security firm claimed power companies are increasingly at risk from cyber-attacks because their computer security is stuck in the last century.