A Call for Resilience Investment

Transforming the nation’s electric grid to a carbon-free, modern system is a challenge utilities are embracing through their many commitments and associated actions. The benefits of this transition are clear: reduced emissions, reduced costs and a more flexible and efficient system. At the same time, communities across our country face other challenges, including the ability to endure and respond to the extreme weather events we are experiencing with increasing frequency and severity.

These events are disproportionately harmful to low-income and disadvantaged communities and people who are least able to protect themselves in advance, or to respond after their occurrence. After each disaster, federal, state and local agencies evaluate options to increase resilience in the hardest hit communities, as seen in New Orleans after Katrina, in the Mid-Atlantic after Sandy, in California and the West after each major wildfire and in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico after Maria. However, we have not seen a proactive, continuous, and coordinated effort to improve resilience for those most at risk.

A number of federal, state and local government agencies, as well as utilities and technology providers, are exploring solutions to harden the grid and provide increased resilience. SEPA has participated in a number of these efforts recently, including:

• Voices of Experience Initiative: Microgrids for Resiliency - U.S. Department of Energy
• Regional Microgrids for Resilience Study - Commonwealth of Kentucky
• Increasing Grid Resilience with Transactive Energy - U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium

In 2019 SEPA also developed a Microgrid Playbook on Community Resilience for Natural Disasters focused on how to develop a holistic microgrid and resilience plan that considers all stakeholders. SEPA outlines the best strategies for earthquakes, hurricanes, and wildfires as well as an adaptable 5-step planning approach.

Other efforts are underway in state legislatures such as Oregon and California, including Oregon SB 784 which provides rate recovery for utility investments in resilience.

In addition to traditional grid hardening efforts, multiple approaches and technologies are candidates to provide resilience solutions aligned with carbon-reduction goals, primarily in three categories:

1. Solar and storage at individual residences
2. Clean microgrids serving public use facilities, critical infrastructure facilities and select commercial sites (i.e., grocery stores and fuel providers)
3. Larger, clean microgrids operated at the substation or community level.

While the potential technical solutions are relatively well-known, quantifying the value provided within each community is not as simple. 

What is clear is that significant additional investment is needed to understand and meet the basic needs of disadvantaged communities through improved resilience. These investments must be made at the federal, state and local levels. I encourage everyone to consider these needs and to incorporate appropriate investment vehicles into federal infrastructure plans and state legislation.