The Commitment to Resilience is essential for the energy transition to be successful

I recently wrote a recent article on the concepts that High-Reliability Organizations (HRO) deploy in practice and how these principles could be applied by policymakers and the energy sector in the forthcoming energy transition. I received a lot of feedback on this article, in particular, that I did not provide enough information on each of the five HRO concepts and how they could relate to the energy transition. Therefore over the coming weeks, I will write five articles on each of the HRO concepts. Last week I wrote about why HRO's exhibit high levels of Sensitivity to Operations and how these concepts can be applied to the energy transition. This week I will expand on the fourth HRO concept, Commitment to Resilience.

The energy sector, especially the electricity sector is currently facing a once-in-a-hundred-year transformation and this transition has the potential to have immense implications on the economy, society and the environment. The energy transition consists of primarily moving away from fossil fuel generation to renewable, sustainable energy sources and will provide a unique challenge for designers and operators of the various energy systems. Throughout this transformation, one critical component has emerged as a standout, powerful and fundamental driving force – the commitment to resilience.

At the moment, the word resilience is a buzzword that is widely used by policymakers within the context of the energy transition and it refers to the ability of a system to endure or recover quickly from difficult operating conditions. For clarity, the Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy states that energy resilience is the ability of the grid, buildings, and communities to withstand and rapidly recover from power outages and continue operating with electricity, heating, cooling, ventilation, and other energy-dependent services.

The concept of resilience within the context of the energy transition entails recognizing and evaluating risks and then undertaking thorough risk management techniques to ensure a favorable outcome. This will result in a high level of system stability through managing:

• Natural Threats - extreme weather events are occurring all around the world and this affects the reliability of all forms of generation assets (floods, droughts, high winds, polar vortexes, hurricanes, tornados, etc).
• Technological Threats - managing the integration of newer generation technology into continuous operations (wind, solar, storage, demand side response, inverter-based resources, digital inertia, etc, etc.)
• Financial Threats - the commercial aspects of designing, installing, and operating generation equipment is extremely challenging. The cost of capital has increased substantially over the last three years and combined with the increased pressure on the supply chain; this has resulted in a difficult environment for large wind and solar projects to be financially viable in several areas around the world.
• Human-caused Threats - security risks on critical infrastructure are occurring around the world this is evident from the increased amount of cyber-attacks and physical security breaches on critical infrastructure assets.

How can you develop a resilient grid to ensure a successful energy transition?

The Resilient Energy Platform is a joint partnership through USAID-NREL and they characterize resilience planning as identifying the threats, impacts, and vulnerabilities to the electricity system, and devising strategies to mitigate these risks to achieve the energy transition vision. However, achieving this objective requires all of the stakeholders to engage in a common goal for a resilient system. This is often extremely difficult to achieve with all of the competing political, environmental, and financial interests. Unfortunately, this often results in policies that are flawed and have little chance of being successful without large financial support mechanisms.

The commitment to resilience in the energy sector is essential to ensure the energy transition has a successful outcome. Resilience planning encourages the strategic management of emerging risks and uncertainties and promotes a reliable, secure, and sustainable energy system. By integrating the principles of resilience, the sector can meet the transitional challenges head-on, adapt to a changing landscape, and transform them into opportunities for growth and innovation, ensuring the successful transition to a sustainable energy future.

However, the key risk for a successful transition is not necessarily the poor management of either natural, technical, financial or human-caused risks. It's the risk of not having a structured, practical and financially responsible operating strategy from policymakers, that doesn't burden customers and countries with long-term energy poverty.