try alliance: The Guard helps field-test and validate emerging tech; industry drives innovation via live simulation testbed. Academic/DEVCOM partners measure and refine performance, ac - celerating development, use-case customization, and transition from R&D to mission relevance. Solar is inexpensive, quick to de - ploy, and reduces user need to main - tain fuel line access. Current-gener - ation solar is largely dominated by Chinese manufacturing, and China could exploit that dominance to ad - vance its military and intelligence goals. (Earlier this year, U.S. energy and security officials revealed that some Chinese-made power invert - ers—used in a wide range of energy technologies, including solar—con - tained “rogue communications de - vices” that could be used to disrupt grid functionality.) Perovskite solar offers a way around this vulnerability. The tech - nology can be manufactured domes - tically, using materials widely avail - able in the United States and among allies. Commercializing perovskite technology could allow construc - tion of U.S. supply chains free of the influence of foreign adversaries, al - lowing DoW to integrate solar power into mission plans without risk to critical operations. DARPA Collaboration– Early Integration Another defining aspect of the Cy - ber Fortress exercise was the direct integration of a cutting-edge Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program—the Cyber Agents for Security Testing and Learning Environments (CASTLE) initiative. CASTLE is designed to revolutionize how cyber defense capabilities are developed, trained, and validated by using autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) agents to create and operate within realistic, dynamic network environments. During Cyber Fortress, the CAS - TLE program provided an AI-driven framework that allowed participants to generate and manage complex
A group receives instruction during the 2025 Virginia National Guard Cyber Fortress exercise. Source: Author
simulate scenarios where the main grid is denied or degraded, while still sustaining command and control, sensor networks, UAS detection, and energy for electrified defense as - sets. In short, the microgrid became a backbone for experimentation: In - dustry could test battery and genera - tion assets, the Guard could test their operational response, and academia could monitor resilience metrics. Game changer: perovskite solar modules. In parallel, the exercise in - cluded deploying and operational - izing perovskite solar modules (i.e., solar panels using thin-film solar cells based on the perovskite crystal structure) as part of the energy bun - dle powering the exercise envelope. Perovskite solar technologies are sup - ported by DoW and the Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office because of their potential high performance and low cost, especially in a tandem or multijunction cell ar -
chitecture. Army Small Business Inno - vation Research topics specifically list “environmentally stable perovskite solar cell module” for soldier-level power-on-the-move. The inclusion of these next-gener - ation perovskite modules in the exer - cise signals a move from laboratory research and development (R&D) to operational prototyping. If success - ful, perovskites could enable lighter, more rapidly deployable, higher- energy-density power generation (especially for expeditionary or aus - tere environments), complement - ing the microgrid infrastructure. The perovskite tandem modules fed into the Cyber Fortress microgrid-enabled distributed generation with rapid de - ployment, reduced logistics burden, and improved supply chain resilience. Using these technologies in tan - dem (microgrid + perovskite) within Cyber Fortress demonstrates the power of the National Guard-indus -
34 DEFENSE ACQUISITION MAGAZINE | MAY – JUNE 2026
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