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At least 289 records · Page 16

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

DOE OSTI2025

Equity-Centered Engagement Through Climate Resilience Policy in Massachusetts

Resilience efforts tend to reinforce injustices. Communities who experience disproportionate climate impacts are often excluded from resilience planning, and those plans do not typically address root causes of social vulnerability. More transformational approaches to resilience would shift decision-making power into communities and affect how people survive and thrive in a climate changing world. The Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) 2.0 program is an attempt to change the status quo in resilience planning by bringing new voices into decision-making power, recognizing their labor, addressing root causes of vulnerability, and investing in social infrastructure. It aims to build capacity for equity-focused community engagement within teams of municipal staff and community liaisons, and ultimately build community cohesion. My mixed methods research investigates implementation of this state grant program in several Massachusetts towns. I am using document review, participant observation, and interviews to understand the MVP 2.0 process as written, how different municipalities navigate it, and how individuals make sense of their experiences in it. I seek to understand how those experiences explain relationships between engagement approaches, mediating factors, and process outcomes. I am interested in the conditions that allow for community empowerment and how a model like MVP 2.0 can shift conditions that hold systems in place. In a practical sense, my empirical results will help municipalities reflect on their work during MVP 2.0 and plan for future community engagement. They may be informative for designing future iterations of the MVP program and for other municipalities, offices of community engagement, and practitioners. The findings will also contribute to the participation, resilience, and climate justice literatures, by adding perspectives on equity-centered resilience and community engagement approaches in smaller towns and rural settings.

Callaham, Shannon↗

DOE OSTI2025

Equity-Centered Engagement Through Climate Resilience Policy in Massachusetts

Communities who experience disproportionate climate change impacts tend to be excluded from resilience planning. Those efforts typically follow top-down processes within established governance practices that are inaccessible to marginalized folks and reinforce inequalities. Regenerating the commons includes creating opportunities for everyone to meaningfully shape community resilience decisions and experience related benefits. Resilience planning that shifts power into communities and focuses on social vulnerability can affect how people survive and thrive in a climate changed world. The Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) 2.0 program is an attempt to change the status quo in resilience planning by bringing new voices into decision-making power, recognizing their labor, addressing root causes of vulnerability, and investing in social infrastructure. It aspires to build capacity for equity-focused community engagement within teams of municipal staff and community liaisons, and ultimately build social capital and community cohesion. My research investigates implementation of this state grant program in several western Massachusetts towns. I am using document review, participant observation, and interviews to understand the MVP 2.0 process as written, how different towns navigate it, and how individuals make sense of their experiences in it. I seek to understand how those experiences explain relationships between engagement approaches, mediating factors, and process outcomes. I am interested in the conditions that allow for community empowerment and how a model like MVP 2.0 can shift conditions that hold systems in place. In a practical sense, our findings will help municipalities reflect on their work during MVP 2.0 and plan for future community engagement. They may be informative for designing future iterations of the MVP program and for other municipalities or offices of community engagement. The findings will also contribute to the participation, resilience, and climate justice literatures, by adding perspectives on equity-centered resilience and community engagement approaches in smaller towns and rural settings.

Callaham, Shannon↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Resilience Modeling in Complex Engineered Systems with Human-Machine Interactions

In recent times, there has been a growing interest in resilience-based design. Resilience-based design operates on the concept that failures and unexpected events will happen, and when they occur, complex engineered systems should be able to operate within acceptable bounds and recover reasonably. Humans can contribute to the resilience of a system by quickly detecting unforeseen events and taking corrective measures. To this effect, researchers have proposed guidelines and design approaches that can help promote human-system resilience. However, there is no early design stage tool to validate if a system is indeed resilient after applying these guidelines and design methods. In this research, we integrate the Human Error and Functional Failure Reasoning (HEFFR) framework into the fmdtools toolkit to enable designers to model the combined (machine, human, and joint) failures, including their propagation and dynamic effects, during early design stages. This integrated tool also allows designers to model the effects of performance shaping factors, team dynamics, and human-machine interactions in systems of systems. A demonstrative example of a remotely operated rover is explored to demonstrate how this approach can be applied to understand resilience in complex engineered systems with human interactions.

Lukman Irshad↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Resiliency in Future Cislunar Space Architectures

Resiliency is an aspirational metric, and it is a common goal for complex systems – be they engineered space architectures, geopolitical networks, or the human immune system. However, despite the ubiquitous desire for resiliency, the concept is surprisingly difficult to define and apply to future planning efforts. We assert that resiliency can emerge from a layered approach of deliberately chosen capabilities with overlap and flexibility that, in aggregate, result in a resilient system. The challenge is to identify capabilities that contribute to resiliency and to accurately characterize their value. Resiliency is discussed through the lens of future architecture planning, outlining how the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) can benefit from a shift in approach when transitioning focus to the cislunar environment.

Jason Hay↗

DOE OSTI2015

Incorporating the Rule of Law in Resiliency Analyses

In 2005, the United Nations (UN) World Conference on Disaster Reduction convened in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan, with the goal of developing a 10-year strategy to guide countries in fostering resiliency to natural disasters.1 The Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) established five priorities to enhance community resiliency, emphasizing improvements in the rule of law as it relates to communities’ governing systems. The end of the first 10-year period of the HFA presents an opportunity for policymakers to examine how the rule of law could be incorporated in the analyses of progress toward the resiliency goals articulated in the HFA priorities. This paper discusses the relationship between the rule of law and resiliency, presents a case study of how the rule of law could be analyzed in the context of community resiliency based on the HFA priorities, and proposes a model of how the rule of law supports the community system activities necessary to achieve the resiliency enhancements described in the HFA.

governance↗

DOE OSTI2020

Energy Master Planning for Resilient Public Communities—Best Practices from U.S. Military Installations

Until recently, most planners at military installations addressed energy systems for new facilities on an individual facility basis without consideration of community-wide goals relevant to energy sources, renewables, storage, or future energy generation needs. Building retrofits of public buildings typically do not address energy needs beyond the minimum code requirements making it difficult, if not impossible, to achieve community-level targets on a building-by-building basis. Planning on the basis of cost and general reliability may also fail to deliver community-level resilience. For example, many building code requirements focus on hardening to specific threats, but in a multi-building community, only a few of these buildings may be mission-critical. Over the past two decades, the frequency and duration of regional power outages and water utility disruptions from weather, man-made events, and aging infrastructure have increased. Major disruptions of electric and thermal energy have degraded critical mission capabilities and caused significant economic impacts. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Defense issued guidance that each Service (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) complete comprehensive energy plans for the installations that consumed 75% of total building energy. Guidance was updated in 2017 to include metrics for energy resilience, and in some cases, water. This paper describes how community level quantitative and qualitative resilience analysis and metrics have been incorporated into community energy and water planning best practices for military installations in three geographically diverse locations. It is based on research performed under the International Energy Agency’s “Energy in Buildings and Communities Program Annex 73,” focusing on development of guidelines and tools that support the planning of Net Zero Energy Resilient Public Communities as well as research performed under the Department of Defense Environmental Security Technology Certification Program project EW18-D1- 5281, “Technologies Integration to Achieve Resilient, Low- Energy Military Installations.” The first case study reviews progress made on an energy and water planning study conducted at Fort Bliss, Texas. The second and third describes planning conducted at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and the Joint Region Marianas, Guam, respectively, under the updated guidance from 2017 regarding energy and water resilience. Analysis methods, key metrics, and key infrastructure and operational constraints are described, as well as technical, economic and business concepts used during the planning process.

Urban, Angela B.↗

DOE OSTI2021

Guided Resilience Self Assessment Application

Reliable electricity access is vital for everything from hospitals to national security. When grid disturbances occur, it is crucial to minimize the amount of time it takes to recover. Grid resiliency considers both the preparation for and recovery from high-impact low-frequency disturbances (HILF) such as weather events and cyber attacks. The Department of Energy (DOE) Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) funds the multi-laboratory Microgrids, Infrastructure Resilience, and Advanced Control Launchpad (MIRACL) project to investigate technologies to support and grow distributed wind. Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) contribute to resilience and cybersecurity efforts for the project, and have produced a resilience framework to evaluate system resilience based on individual system specifications. In order to make this framework easy for anyone to apply, I have coded a web application that allows users to input their power system qualities, goals, and perceived risks and then receive suggestions on how to improve their grid resiliency. The web application follows the seven steps in the planning stage of the framework process, allowing the user to input information about their grid and select from common goals, metrics, and hazards, as well as add their own. The application currently provides information about how to complete each step, requiring minimal prior knowledge of the framework. Future work for this application will include allowing the user to submit line drawings of their system and incorporate modeling tools so that the hazard simulations of applying the framework is completed for the user.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2022

Decarbonization in Climate Resilience Planning

Recent executive orders such as E.O. 14008 require federal agencies to address climate change by enhancing resilience and reducing emissions through decarbonization. Traditionally, federal agencies require their sites to develop preparedness plans, such as continuity of operations plans and/or more comprehensive resilience plans. When climate change is included in these plans, the focus tends to be on climate adaptation solutions such as hardening infrastructure and not on climate mitigation through decarbonization. However, with the ambitious emission reductions targets set out by the federal government, it is essential to provide resources and tools to support energy and water managers in achieving decarbonization goals. To achieve this, there is a need for decarbonization to be incorporated into existing resilience planning processes. We discuss a method of incorporating a decarbonization analysis into an existing resilience planning process to create a holistic framework that considers climate adaptation, climate mitigation, and risk reduction priorities when developing and prioritizing solutions for federal sites. Site managers and decision makers must be aware of potential opportunities and trade-offs in meeting energy and water performance goals, emission reductions goals, and climate adaptation goals when developing technological, operational, or institutional resilience solutions. By combining these processes, energy and water managers can minimize the additional level of effort to ensure that their sites are not only able to withstand climate-related energy and water disruptions, but also contribute to climate mitigation. A holistic approach can help federal agencies serve as a model for incorporating decarbonization strategies into site-level resilience planning for the rest of the nation.

Elliott, Douglas B.↗

DOE OSTI2020

After the hurricane: Validating a resilience assessment methodology

With increasing utility grid outages in the United States, there is growing interest in assessing risk and developing mitigation strategies to reduce the impact of grid outages. Working with the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) developed a replicable energy resilience assessment methodology and investment decision tool to: (1) identify and score hazards and vulnerabilities at the site level; (2) analyze risks to energy infrastructure; and (3) identify and prioritize energy resilience investments. This work improves on existing resilience assessment methodologies and tools by combining a bottom-up, all-hazards assessment methodology with top-down geographic information system mapping capabilities to provide an innovative, dynamic tool for identifying and prioritizing actionable solutions. This process combines probabilistic forecasting with an iterative approach for continuously updating and reassessing risks to address temporal dynamism. Relationships among systems are modeled and visualized to estimate the effectiveness of resilience actions across multiple interdependent systems and inform financial priorities through cost-difficulty-impact trade-offs. The approach is validated in a case study at Tyndall Air Force Base (AFB) in Florida, which experienced a Category 5 hurricane in 2018. The risks and mitigation strategies identified pre-hurricane are compared with post-hurricane, realized impacts. The assessment effectively identifies risks and actions to increase site energy resilience, but the methodology can be enhanced though greater consideration of the interdependencies between the energy system and related systems like transportation, communication, and food/water systems, which impact the recovery of the energy system and the base.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2023

Utilizing grid–supportive load response to shape resilient frequency control of the power grid

The increasing penetration of renewable energy sources and the retirement of conventional generation units have decreased system inertia, making power systems more vulnerable to resilience and stability issues. To address this problem, this paper proposes a novel approach using grid-supportive loads (GSLs) to provide a fast and concise primary frequency response and a deep deterministic policy gradient agent-based secondary controller to restore the system frequency to the nominal value. The proposed method is evaluated on the single-area and multi-area test systems. The simulation results demonstrate that using GSLs enhances the power system's stability and resilience. Compared to conventional controllers, the frequency nadir is improved with GSLs. Additionally, the proposed method effectively enhances resilience even with high penetration. These findings indicate that the proposed approach can improve the resilience and stability of power systems and provide a promising solution for future power systems. The results of this study underscore the importance of utilizing innovative approaches to enhance the stability and resilience of power systems in the context of high penetration of renewable energy sources and the retirement of conventional generation.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2021

Dysfunctionality Hazard Curve: Risk-Based Tool to Support the Resilient Design of Systems Subjected to Multihazards

While resilience metrics have been proposed and studied given a functionality recovery curve, they have not emphasized enough on accounting for the uncertainties in the multihazard occurrences and intensities. Moreover, these resilience metrics are not risk-based (i.e., they do not express the system's resilience loss as a frequency of exceedance), leading to inconsistencies in system performance description when compared to performance-based engineering frameworks. A risk-based tool termed dysfunctionality hazard curve is proposed to assess the resilience of systems subjected to single hazards or multihazards with inter-event dependencies. Dysfunctionality hazard curve expresses system resilience performance as frequency of exceedance of time to full functionality. In doing so, it characterizes system recovery as a sequence of repair activities and also considers the uncertainties in the multihazard occurrences and intensities. Dysfunctionality hazard curve is demonstrated for a residential building susceptible to earthquake and hurricane hazards. Results indicate that Dysfunctionality hazard curve for earthquakes is greater than that for hurricane winds under single hazards. Under multihazards, considering inter-event dependencies during system recovery leads to larger dysfunctionality hazard curve than ignoring them. Finally, the concept of dysfunctionality hazard curve is also extended to a system-of-systems consisting of residential and commercial buildings.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2021

Probabilistic Resilience of DER Systems - A Simulation Assisted Optimization Approach

Energy systems resilience is becoming increasingly important as the frequency of major grid outages increases. In this work, we present a methodology to optimize a behind-tlie-meter distributed energy resource system to sustain a site's critical loads during a pre-defined outage period. With the fixed system design, we then propose an outage simulation approach to estimate the resilience potential of the DER system to sustain loads beyond the fixed outage period - a yearlong resilience performance analysis. We apply statistical analysis to assess the system's resilience performance over a broader parametric problem space on an hourly, monthly, and yearly basis. We demonstrate the impact of the pre-defined outage period on the resilience performance through a case study. Results show that the probability of surviving a random outage of a given duration changes from 20% to 95% when the outage is modeled for a weekday instead of a weekend for the given load-profile.

28 EE - Advanced Manufacturing Office (EE-5A)↗

DOE OSTI2023

Envisioning the Future Renewable and Resilient Energy Grids—A Power Grid Revolution Enabled by Renewables, Energy Storage, and Energy Electronics

Today’s power grids are facing tremendous challenges because of the ever-increasing power demand, system complexity, infrastructure cost, knowledge base, and policy and regulatory issues to achieve supply–demand power balance and resiliency with respect to more frequent extreme weather events and cyberattacks. It is particularly challenging when the transition toward 100% intermittent renewable energy sources is considered. Many countries are calling for building up more transmission and distribution lines to increase power delivery capacities. This article is an attempt to answer two urgent questions: Is more transmission and distribution infrastructure really needed to meet the increasing power demand? What kind of future grid infrastructure should we envision and build? This article attempts to answer these questions and proposes the concept of community-centric asynchronous renewable and resilient energy grids. By clearly differentiating the concepts of grid resilience and reliability, the importance of building resilient power electronics’ devices and robust system-level control algorithms to achieve 100% renewable energy integrated resilient grids is presented. To identify the shortcomings and propose advancements, power electronics’ technologies are categorized using the proposed concepts of natural source frequencies (NSf), energy storage, direct energy conversion/control and fault protection (DeCaFp), and high-efficiency energy consumption and buffering (heECaB) technology. The ability of networked microgrids to greatly reduce power outages and power system restoration time is demonstrated by leveraging robust decentralized and centralized control algorithms, identified through a comprehensive literature review. Future research areas are proposed to further enhance grid stability, controllability, cybersecurity, and protection against faults in the presence of 100% renewable sources by leveraging the advanced capabilities of NSf, DeCaFp, and heECaB devices and system-level control algorithms.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2023

Control of Behind-the-Meter Resources for Enhancing the Resilience of Residential Buildings

There is increased concern about the impacts of frequent power outages, caused primarily by extreme weather conditions. With increasing behind-the-meter resources such as solar photovoltaics (PV), battery energy storage, and controllable loads, these resources - if properly coordinated - can meet critical loads even during an outage. Resilience building controls can coordinate and operate these resources to enhance the resiliency of buildings supporting critical loads for longer duration. In this paper, we present two resilience building controls: rule-based control and model predictive control (MPC). We simulated various scenarios considering different locations, seasons, outage types, and times of outages to evaluate the performance of resilience controls. The results show that MPC-based control can enhance resilience up to 65% compared to rule-based control. Similarly, PV self-consumption and occupant thermal comfort both increase during outages with MPC-based control.

ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION↗

DOE OSTI2023

A Transductive Graph Neural Network learning for Grid Resilience Analysis

Power grids are critical infrastructures that require robust resilience analysis to ensure reliable and uninterrupted electricity supply. Traditional simulation-based methods for grid resilience analysis suffer from computational complexity and limited ability to capture the full spectrum of potential disruptions. This paper presents a novel approach to enhance grid resilience by leveraging transductive graph neural network (GNN) learning to identify critical nodes and links. By leveraging the graph structure and system features, GNNs effectively learn resilience metrics and accurately identify critical nodes based on actual grid operational behavior. The efficacy of the proposed approach is demonstrated through case studies on node criticality scoring and critical node/line identification in cascading outage scenarios. The results highlight the advantages of learning-based methods over traditional simulation-based approaches and their potential to revolutionize grid resilience analysis. The contributions of this paper include a graph-based scalable approach for fast cascading analysis, an inductive formulation for training GNN models, and a transfer learning-based approach to scale the model to largescale power systems.

grid resilience, graph neural networks, transducti↗

DOE OSTI2025

Data-Driven Energy Resilience Assessment and Enhancement in Urban Communities: A Case Study in Detroit

This paper presents a data-driven framework for assessing and enhancing energy resilience in urban communities. The resilience assessment is based on two datasets: 1) annual aggregated power outage data and 2) 15-minute interval outage data. High-impact, low-probability (HILP) events are identified within these datasets to evaluate community resilience under extreme conditions. To enhance resilience, an optimization framework utilizing mixed integer linear programming is developed to determine the optimal sizing and placement of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and battery energy storage systems (BESS). This method offers a cost-effective and practical solution for improving energy resilience in vulnerable communities. Furthermore, a case study of the City of Detroit in Michigan demonstrates the effectiveness of the framework through simulation and validation.

Energy resilience assessment↗

DOE OSTI2018

Resilience Metric Formulation Considering Transactive Systems

To help understand the effects of risk and uncertainty on power system operation, particularly during deleterious events, a model for resilience that defines four specific phases of resilience and associated activity was adopted, refined, and contextualized. Given this model, a comparison is made to the well-established field in power systems of reliability and an integrated framework is developed. The role of transactive energy systems in resilience activity is discussed and the strong alignment between properties of transactive energy systems and resilient systems is made. Finally, a scenario-based framework for risk metrics is proposed; the proposed framework allows for the direct comparison in performance between existing (business-as-usual) and transactive energy systems in improving resilience.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2026

Strategies for Flood Resilience and Grid Investment Among Iowa's Electric Distribution Utilities

Flooding poses a growing threat to Iowa's electric distribution system, yet utilities face significant data and modeling challenges in planning effective resilience investments. This report provides a foundational assessment of how distribution utilities in Iowa, investor-owned, municipal, and cooperative, approach resilience planning, with a focus on flood risk. It combines hazard characterization, review of state and utility practices, and application of NLR's Energy Resilience Analysis for Distribution Systems (ERAD) and Capacity Expansion Decision Support for Distribution Networks (CADET) tools. Using FEMA floodplains, Iowa Flood Center depth grids, and utility infrastructure data, the analysis quantifies asset exposure, simulates outage risks, and evaluates resilience strategies such as pole hardening, undergrounding, and substation protection. Results indicate that while feeder-level upgrades provide incremental benefits, the most significant reductions in outage risk are achieved through targeted substation interventions. The report highlights key data gaps, such as limited elevation data and fragility functions, and underscores the need for probability-weighted investment frameworks to address both frequent and catastrophic flood events. These insights aim to support utilities, state agencies, and federal partners in prioritizing resilience investments that safeguard Iowa's electric grid against future flooding.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗