Assessing Energy and Water Resilience for the Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation Quantico complex completed a resilience assessment using the Federal Energy Management Program’s Technical Resilience Navigator (TRN) Lite in Summer 2023.

This fact sheet provides an overview of the process and a summary of lessons learned that may be helpful to other federal facilities interested in using the TRN or TRN Lite for a resilience assessment at their sites.…

From Principles to Action: Corporate Innovation Stories to Build Climate Resilience

Resilience, in general, is widely viewed as the capacity to bounce back, evolve, and thrive amid unexpected events, shocks, or stressors. For major companies, resilience involves a holistic approach to organizational design, behaviors, and work practices that promote agility, adaptability, and creative problem-solving to adapt, withstand, and recover from disruptions while maintaining value delivery to stakeholders. To meet the current and increasingly severe impacts from climate change, companies must adjust their strategies and internal structures to meet climate-related challenges; have the tools and knowledge to effectively assess and manage these risks; foster a culture of continuous improvement, innovation, and shared …

Reimagining Resilience: A Framework for Integrating Customer-Sited and Grid-Scale DERs

In 2021, the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) developed the Microgrid Design Framework to provide the industry with a 10 step process for resilience-focused microgrid design. The 2021 framework sought to break communication silos down utilities and third-parties to improve microgrid project success and support the industry in addressing community resilience to natural hazard risks via microgrid deployment. Recognizing that the 2021 framework does not capture the full landscape of stakeholders, solutions, and business models for successfully improving resilience for utility customers and communities, this update builds on that framework and SEPA’s experience working directly with state energy offices, utilities, …

SEPA Resilience Playbook for States and Utilities

SEPA’s Resilience Planning Playbook provides state energy offices and utilities with a starting point to address the role of distribution system resilience in the clean energy transition. This playbook utilizes traditional electric utility best practices (e.g., system reliability and capacity planning) and emerging best practices (e.g., environmental justice, energy equity, and critical infrastructure considerations) to help states and utilities understand the tools needed to ensure resilience in light of changing customer needs and demands. It introduces various tools for improving resilience planning (e.g., grid modernization, grid hardening, and distributed energy resources).

In 2020, the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) developed …

Assessing Resilience at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) completed its pilot of the Federal Energy Management Program’s Technical Resilience Navigator (TRN) at its Richland, Washington, campus in early spring 2022. This resource provides a summary of PNNL’s lessons learned that may prove helpful to others interested in leveraging the TRN’s resilience planning process for their own facilities, installations, or campuses. …

Affordable Housing and Energy Resilience in Lynn, Massachusetts

Community land trusts and community microgrids present an opportunity for low- and moderate income (LMI) communities in Lynn, Massachusetts to take ownership of their neighborhood, provide affordable housing, and create family and community wealth through home ownership. Community land trusts and microgrids advance equitable affordable housing approaches through organizational missions grounded in racial/ethnic and economic justice, sustainable development, community control, and intergenerational equity (see ES-Table 1). This Applied Economics Clinic report makes recommendations for policymakers in Massachusetts to assist in creating strategies for affordable housing creation and preservation and reduction of energy costs. Lynn needs strategies to address its growing …

Grid Resilience Plans: State Requirements, Utility Practices, and Utility Plan Template

As of June 2024, 14 states and one city require jurisdictional electric utilities to file resilience plans. Drawing on these requirements and filed plans, this report offers a standard template that states and utilities can consider to improve utility filings for grid resilience plans, either as part of a distribution system plan or as a separate filing. Key elements include a vulnerability assessment, description of proposed resilience programs, and projected costs and rate impacts. While many of these requirements and plans focus on extreme weather hazards, the template also can be used to address additional threats, including cyber and physical …

Modeling and Design of Solar + Storage-Powered Community Resilience Hubs Across California

Distributed clean, reliable energy resources like solar plus battery storage (solar + storage) can reduce harmful emissions while supporting resilience. Solar + storage-powered resilience hubs provide energy for critical services during disasters while increasing human adaptive capacity year round. The authors studied where utility rates, local climate, and historical injustice make solar + storage resilience hubs more valuable and more challenging.

The authors modeled the economic and climate impacts of outfitting candidate hub sites across California with solar + storage for everyday operations and identified designs and costs required to withstand a range of outages considering weather impacts on energy …

Case Study: Detroit’s A.B. Ford Resilience Hub

A new community center in Detroit doubles as a solar-powered resilience hub, thanks to a
partnership between the City and two nonprofits. Read this case study to learn more!…

Building Community Resilience Across California

Between 2020 and 2024, PSE Healthy Energy partnered with the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) and Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) to identify opportunities to build solar+energy storage resilience hubs at schools, community centers, and places of worship across California. APEN defines resilience hubs as “physical institutions that offer space for community members to gather, organize, and access resilience-building social services on a daily basis, and provide response and recovery services in disaster situations.” Our analysis focuses on solar+storage resilience hubs, which can deliver distinct advantages for community resilience by keeping essential services online during power outages and providing …