Regional Weather Resilience Training by US DOE and Argonne National Labs

Background

Extreme weather conditions pose challenges to electric utilities tasked with providing reliable and resilient power to the communities they serve. Federal and industry efforts, like EPRI's READi Initiative, are already under way and capturing practices to take a data-driven approach to proactive weather-related resilience planning.

The needs and capabilities of utilities vary widely, and many of the existing resilience planning guidance efforts are closely aligned with the needs of larger electric utilities. Nonetheless, smaller municipal utilities, rural electric cooperatives, and tribal utilities must also plan for a resilient future and require planning guidance relevant to their unique needs.

The Regional Weather Resilience Workshop series is an effort targeted at smaller municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives that wish to receive broad exposure on the topic of planning for extreme weather conditions, to learn about available data, and hear from industry leaders and experts about how to successfully apply forward looking weather data to drive change within their organizations. This regional workshop format will complement a similar project under DOE's Grid Deployment Office focused on a year-long, utility cohort-based educational approach.

Anticipated Results

The workshop will equip municipal utilities, rural electric cooperatives, and tribal utilities with the baseline knowledge necessary to begin integrating extreme weather considerations into their system planning efforts. This will position utilities to take the first steps in developing their own vulnerability assessments and resilience plans in collaboration with peers.

Benefits

Participants from cooperative, municipal, and tribal utilities will benefit from the workshop in several ways:
• Learn about peer-reviewed extreme weather modeling, data, and analytical tools.
• Receive step-by-step guidance and customizable templates to develop their own plans.
• Participate in peer-to-peer learning and the sharing of ideas, resources, and best practices across organizations.

Managing Laboratory

• Argonne National Laboratory