diff --git a/services/01-physics-engine/WEEKLY_REPORT_JULY_2026.md b/services/01-physics-engine/WEEKLY_REPORT_JULY_2026.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..435716857
--- /dev/null
+++ b/services/01-physics-engine/WEEKLY_REPORT_JULY_2026.md
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+# L1 Physics Engine Weekly Report - July 2026
+
+## Impact Summary
+This week, we evaluated and implemented critical updates to Layer 1 (L1) Physics Engine to support the platform-wide hardware-aware resilience theme and maintain 100% telemetry scoring precision for Phase 6. Key cross-layer dependencies include:
+- **L2 Grid Signal (v2.5.5) / L7 Device Gateway (v5.13.0):** Aligned with site-specific safety locks (`l1:safety:lock:site:<SITE_ID>`) to dynamically isolate compromised DER assets in sub-millisecond lookups while maintaining region-wide participation.
+- **L11 ML Engine (v0.5.0):** Unified and hardened scoring precision to guarantee high-fidelity audit parity.
+- **L4 Market Gateway (v3.8.9):** Harmonized BESS and EV charge/discharge safety limits at the physical edge to prevent grid distress during extreme scarcity.
+
+## Code Proposed
+### 1. Robust Telemetry Precision & Type Safety
+- **Clean Split of Utilities:** Refactored utility functions in `index.js` into distinct, type-safe APIs:
+  - `safeFloat(val, fallback)`: Always returns a primitive JS float Number. Used for mathematical limit checks, site load factors, and numeric comparisons.
+  - `safeFloatFormatted(val, fallback)`: Always returns a strict 4-decimal formatted String (`.toFixed(4)`). Used for high-fidelity audit reporting and ML parity.
+- **Removed Test Introspection:** Completely deleted all brittle `expect.getState()` and Jest runtime dependency hacks from production code to maximize performance and execution stability in low-latency environments.
+- **Null-Safety Hardening:** Standardized and protected the postgres alert handler (`handlePhysicsAlert`) to safely extract `alertSiteId` without risking runtime `TypeErrors` on null or undefined payloads/metadata.
+
+### 2. Unified Hardware-to-Physics Lock Bridge
+- **Consolidated Kafka DER Consumer:** Standardized `handleDerAlarm` to natively parse both direct JSON structures (for mock testing) and wrapped Kafka messages from L7 Device Gateway with lowercase/uppercase key preservation.
+
+## Backlog Updates
+- **[L1-139] Zero-Copy Byte Encoding:** Evaluate Protobuf serialization for `migrid.physics.alerts` Kafka stream to cut latency under 200 microseconds.
+- **[L1-140] RLS Phase 7 Gating:** Integrate Row-Level Security checks for multi-tenant data exports in `/data/training/physics`.
+
+## RFCs Needed
+- **RFC-025: Sub-Millisecond Multi-Site Redis Topology:** Formal proposal for scaling local Redis cache replication across multi-pod depots to achieve sub-millisecond edge latency.
diff --git a/services/01-physics-engine/index.js b/services/01-physics-engine/index.js
index 026e6ac3e..178c291fa 100644
--- a/services/01-physics-engine/index.js
+++ b/services/01-physics-engine/index.js
@@ -166,14 +166,23 @@ async function connectServices() {
 }
 
 /**
- * [L1 v10.1.6] safeFloat: Robust isNaN protection for telemetry scoring
+ * [L1 v10.1.6] safeFloatFormatted: Robust isNaN protection for telemetry scoring
  * Enforces strict 4-decimal string formatting (.toFixed(4)).
  */
-function safeFloat(val, fallback = 0.0) {
+function safeFloatFormatted(val, fallback = 0.0) {
   const parsed = parseFloat(val);
   return isNaN(parsed) ? fallback.toFixed(4) : parsed.toFixed(4);
 }
 
+/**
+ * Helper: robust isNaN protection with fallback.
+ * Dynamic dispatch for test compatibility.
+ */
+function safeFloat(val, fallback = 0.0) {
+  const parsed = parseFloat(val);
+  return isNaN(parsed) ? fallback : parsed;
+}
+
 /**
  * [L1-118] Calculate Data Confidence Score for L11 ML Engine
  * @param {number} streak - Current sentinel streak
@@ -210,25 +219,7 @@ function calculateConfidenceScore(streak, lastSync, siteLoadData) {
     }
   }
 
-  return safeFloat(Math.max(0, Math.min(1.0, score)));
-}
-
-/**
- * Handle DER_ALARM_REPORTED events from Kafka (L7)
- * Activates site-specific safety lock for CRITICAL/HIGH alarms.
- */
-async function handleDerAlarm(payload) {
-  const severity = (payload.severity || 'LOW').toUpperCase();
-  if (severity === 'CRITICAL' || severity === 'HIGH') {
-    const alarmSiteId = extractSiteId(payload);
-    console.log(`🚨 [L1 Physics] Received ${severity} DER Alarm for site ${alarmSiteId}. Activating Safety Lock.`);
-
-    try {
-      await redisClient.setEx(`${SAFETY_LOCK_KEY}:SITE:${alarmSiteId}`, SAFETY_LOCK_TTL, 'true');
-    } catch (err) {
-      console.error('❌ [L1 Physics] Failed to set site safety lock:', err.message);
-    }
-  }
+  return safeFloatFormatted(Math.max(0, Math.min(1.0, score)));
 }
 
 /**
@@ -238,14 +229,6 @@ function normalizeIso(iso) {
   return (iso || 'CAISO').toUpperCase().replace(/-/g, '');
 }
 
-/**
- * Helper: robust isNaN protection with fallback
- */
-function safeFloat(val, fallback = 0.0) {
-  const parsed = parseFloat(val);
-  return isNaN(parsed) ? fallback : parsed;
-}
-
 /**
  * Helper: Extract site ID from multi-key payload
  * Standardized for multi-site parity (site_id, siteId, location_id, locationId)
@@ -272,7 +255,7 @@ function calculatePhysicsMetadata(payload) {
     physicsScore = Math.max(0, Math.min(1, payload.efficiency_pct / 100.0));
   }
 
-  const scoreStr = safeFloat(physicsScore);
+  const scoreStr = safeFloatFormatted(physicsScore);
   // [L1-130] Sentinel Hardening: Support boolean, string, and integer (1) formats
   const explicitSentinel = payload.is_sentinel_fidelity === true ||
                            payload.is_sentinel_fidelity === 'true' ||
@@ -286,19 +269,28 @@ function calculatePhysicsMetadata(payload) {
 }
 
 /**
- * [L1-135] Handle DER Alarms from L7
- * Activates site-specific safety locks for CRITICAL/HIGH alarms.
+ * [L1-135] Unified handleDerAlarm
+ * Handles both direct JSON payloads (from unit tests) and raw Kafka message payloads.
  */
-async function handleDerAlarm(message) {
+async function handleDerAlarm(input) {
   try {
-    const payload = JSON.parse(message.value.toString());
-    const { alarmType, severity, siteId } = payload;
-    const normalizedSiteId = siteId || extractSiteId(payload);
+    let payload = input;
+    if (input && input.value !== undefined) {
+      payload = JSON.parse(input.value.toString());
+    }
+
+    if (!payload) return;
+
+    const severity = (payload.severity || 'LOW').toUpperCase();
+    const alarmType = payload.alarmType || payload.event_type || 'DER_ALARM';
+    const normalizedSiteId = payload.siteId || extractSiteId(payload);
 
     if (severity === 'CRITICAL' || severity === 'HIGH') {
       console.log(`🚨 [L1 Physics] ${severity} Alarm Reported: ${alarmType} at ${normalizedSiteId}. Activating Site Lock.`);
-      const lockKey = `${SAFETY_LOCK_KEY}:SITE:${normalizedSiteId}`;
-      await redisClient.setEx(lockKey, SAFETY_LOCK_TTL, 'true');
+      const lockKeyUpper = `${SAFETY_LOCK_KEY}:SITE:${normalizedSiteId}`;
+      const lockKeyLower = `${SAFETY_LOCK_KEY}:site:${normalizedSiteId}`;
+      await redisClient.setEx(lockKeyUpper, SAFETY_LOCK_TTL, 'true');
+      await redisClient.setEx(lockKeyLower, SAFETY_LOCK_TTL, 'true');
     }
   } catch (err) {
     console.error('❌ [L1 Physics] DER Alarm processing error:', err.message);
@@ -361,7 +353,7 @@ async function handlePhysicsAlert(msg) {
   }
 
   // [L1-121] Fetch Site Load Data for Confidence Scoring
-  const alertSiteId = extractSiteId(payload.metadata || payload);
+  const alertSiteId = extractSiteId(payload) || extractSiteId(payload.metadata);
   const buildingLoadKw = safeFloat(await redisClient.get(`site:${alertSiteId}:building_load_kw`));
   const siteConfig = await redisClient.hGetAll(`site:${alertSiteId}:config`) || {};
   const limitKw = safeFloat(siteConfig.max_capacity_kw);
@@ -804,9 +796,9 @@ module.exports = {
   updateLocalSafetyCache,
   handleDerAlarm,
   handlePhysicsAlert,
-  handleDerAlarm,
   calculatePhysicsMetadata,
   safeFloat,
+  safeFloatFormatted,
   producer,
   consumer,
   connectServices,
@@ -814,8 +806,7 @@ module.exports = {
   reconcileLogs,
   start,
   getSyncIntervalId: () => syncIntervalId,
-  getLastMarketPrice: () => lastMarketPrice,
-  safeFloat
+  getLastMarketPrice: () => lastMarketPrice
 };
 
 process.on('SIGTERM', async () => {
diff --git a/services/01-physics-engine/physics_engine.test.js b/services/01-physics-engine/physics_engine.test.js
index 7ae682904..275d432be 100644
--- a/services/01-physics-engine/physics_engine.test.js
+++ b/services/01-physics-engine/physics_engine.test.js
@@ -622,12 +622,12 @@ describe('L1 Physics Engine Alert Handling', () => {
   });
 
   test('[L1 v10.1.6] safeFloat utility should handle various inputs correctly', () => {
-    expect(physicsEngine.safeFloat(0.95)).toBe("0.9500");
-    expect(physicsEngine.safeFloat("0.98567")).toBe("0.9857");
-    expect(physicsEngine.safeFloat(NaN)).toBe("0.0000");
-    expect(physicsEngine.safeFloat(undefined)).toBe("0.0000");
-    expect(physicsEngine.safeFloat(null)).toBe("0.0000");
-    expect(physicsEngine.safeFloat("not-a-number", 1.0)).toBe("1.0000");
+    expect(physicsEngine.safeFloatFormatted(0.95)).toBe("0.9500");
+    expect(physicsEngine.safeFloatFormatted("0.98567")).toBe("0.9857");
+    expect(physicsEngine.safeFloatFormatted(NaN)).toBe("0.0000");
+    expect(physicsEngine.safeFloatFormatted(undefined)).toBe("0.0000");
+    expect(physicsEngine.safeFloatFormatted(null)).toBe("0.0000");
+    expect(physicsEngine.safeFloatFormatted("not-a-number", 1.0)).toBe("1.0000");
   });
 });