Advancing California’s Electricity Resource Planning Tools to Assess and Improve Climate Resilience
Lumen Energy Strategy, LLC
Recipient
Oakland, CA
Recipient Location
7th
Senate District
18th
Assembly District
$1,000,091
Amount Spent
Active
Project Status
Project Update
As of January 2026, the study team has used its resilience framework, demand re-parameterization, and supply re-parameterization analyses to construct a climate resilience evaluation model. The team has also implemented a draft resilience evaluation demonstration on a 2035 high distributed energy resource (DER) resource portfolio.
This project has also supported advances in the state's demand forecast to better integrate the effects of climate change and the contribution of renewable and storage to the grid. Information on these contributions can be found in the California Energy Commission's 2024 Integrated Energy Policy Report (https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/reports/integrated-energy-policy…) and in accompanying workshops. The team's work to align with resiliency planning best practices and California stakeholders' needs can be found in the California Public Utilities Commission's Resiliency and Microgrids workshops (https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/industries-and-topics/electrical-energy/infrast…).
The Issue
Due to the complexity and constraints of resource planning processes, electricity resource planning models have been challenged to keep pace with California’s rapid policy and technology advancements towards deep renewables penetration, scalable storage, and more distribution- and customer-sited resources. The models also face challenges in keeping pace with the realities of extreme grid stressors due to climate change and how that impacts electricity supply and ratepayers. As a consequence, the state’s planning models need further adaptation to evaluate climate resilience and to reasonably reflect the operability and affordability of the electricity grid to customers.
Specifically, the project targets four institutional barriers to planning for climate resilience: (1) Key stakeholders currently discuss resilience with no common definition or specific resilience evaluation metrics to support the resource planning decision-making process; (2) resource planning model inputs and assumptions key stakeholders rely upon currently have several concerning disconnects from climate projections and climate-driven risks to electricity supply and delivery; (3) current resource planning models used by key stakeholders are not structured to explicitly evaluate resilience; and (4) key stakeholders currently have no in-hand assessment of the resilience of alternative optimal resource portfolios identified in their resource planning models.
Project Innovation
This project will develop new inputs, assumptions, and tools to capture the impacts of climate change on electricity supply and demand of the electricity system in transition. This will include re-parameterization of tools currently used in California's electricity system planning to reflect historic and projected climate data, as well as creating a novel probabilistic loss-of-load resilience evaluation model. This latter model will assess different types of climate-linked resilience events at a geographically granular level, and be publicly available for stakeholder use. In addition the project will evaluate the resilience of state resource planning output portfolios. These products and processes will advance the state’s electricity resource planning model framework to reflect the impact of climate projections and environmental extremes on electricity supply, demand, and the resulting resilience of electricity service to ratepayers.
Project Goals
Project Benefits
Research products, including conceptual and modeling frameworks, as well as engagement with CPUC proceedings have advanced the state’s ability to consider the projected climate impacts and environmental extremes in planning processes associated with electricity supply and demand. The research team has also advanced frameworks for appropriately incentivizing local resilience of electricity service to ratepayers in the context of system reliability planning.
Affordability
The resilience framework offered, along with re-paramaterization of existing resource planning models to better reflect the impact of weather and climate change on resilience, will result in better electricity system predictability and lower costs to ratepayers.
Reliability
Improved understanding of the impact of weather on loads and supply resource availability supports more effective grid planning and management, improving electricity system reliability.
Economic Development
By revealing grid planning opportunities to synergize distributed energy resource (DER) development with both local needs and bulk grid markets, the resilience evaluation model supports policy-driven (a) reductions of the most impactful electric service interruptions to customers and communities, (b) improved affordability of DER solutions, and (c) more local development opportunities.
Energy Security
The resilience evaluation model provides a means to better understand local outage risks and energy security vulnerabilities so they may be analyzed and better managed.
Key Project Members
Mariko Geronimo Aydin
