A Bridge to Better Informed Oversight of Grid Planning in the Face of Severe Weather
A growing number of states require regulated utilities to file resilience plans to improve the electric grid’s ability to anticipate, withstand, adapt to and recover from increasingly severe weather events (see map). Utility resilience planning is relatively new, and measuring resilience is inherently complex since the focus is on grid performance during low probability, highly variable events.
A new report by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Bridging the Gap on Data, Metrics, and Analyses for Grid Resilience to Weather Events: Information that utilities can provide regulators, state energy offices, and other stakeholders, aims to help state regulators identify and request this information and use it in decisions on utility resilience plans and investments. Other stakeholders can use the information to improve their engagement in grid resilience planning. The authors will discuss their findings and recommendations in a public webinar on February 19, 2025, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. Register here: https://lbnl.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_2x7wGMo8Trq50gwa843pRg.
Following up on an earlier report, Grid Resilience Plans: State Requirements, Utility Practices, and Utility Plan Template, Berkeley Lab dug deeper into state resilience planning requirements, utility resilience plans, relevant literature, and materials from industry resilience initiatives and working groups. Researchers also interviewed utility, public utility commission and state energy office representatives.
The report reviews state requirements and utility plans focused on overall grid resilience, climate change resilience and vulnerabilities, infrastructure modernization, storm protection, and wildfire mitigation. A table (at the end of this announcement) summarizes the types of data, metrics, and analyses included in utility resilience plans to date. The report explains how each item supports the resilience planning process and provides examples from utility plans. Regulators may consider specifying such information in planning guidance to jurisdictional utilities.
You can download the report, Bridging the Gap on Data, Metrics, and Analyses for Grid Resilience to Weather Events: Information that utilities can provide regulators, state energy offices, and other stakeholders, at https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/bridging-gap-data-metrics-and. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Deployment Office provided funding for Berkeley Lab's work on the study. For questions on the report, please contact Myles Collins ([email protected]) or Lisa Schwartz ([email protected]).
