Clean Energy 101: Energy System Resilience

When a heatwave triggers widespread power outages, the consequences can be immediate and life-threatening: air conditioners fail, critical at-home medical equipment stops functioning, and vulnerable residents lose access to safe, cool spaces. As extreme weather events become more common, energy resilience is no longer a choice, it is a necessity.

As extreme weather events become more common, energy resilience is no longer a choice, it is a necessity.

What is energy system resilience?

Resilience is a community’s ability to keep critical services — like hospitals, emergency response, water, and communications — operating during and after extreme weather. Resilient systems help limit damage, restore power quickly, and ensure that the most essential services continue to function, even if parts of the broader grid go down. It’s about protecting safety and quality of life when conditions are at their worst.

Reliability, by contrast, is about the grid working smoothly day to day — delivering consistent electricity under normal conditions.  In other words, resilience helps communities prepare for, withstand, and recover from disruptions; reliability keeps the lights on in normal times.

Why does energy system resilience matter now?

Our energy systems need to be able to anticipate, withstand, adapt to, and recover from major disruptions and failures caused by events like extreme weather. This is especially critical now for several reasons:

• We’re experiencing more volatile weather as our climate warms.
• Our infrastructure is aging and wasn’t designed for the current extremes we’re facing.
• Power systems are more complex and interdependent (for example, electricity, gas, telecom, and water can all be reliant on each other to function).
• Increased demand from data centers and electrification further strain the grid.
• As risks escalate, both insured and uninsured losses are rising, which can negatively impact a community’s resilience.

Resilience matters because power outages can quickly lead to serious consequences, including health emergencies, water and sanitation failures, food insecurity, and loss of communications.

Recent disasters illustrate these risks. During Winter Storm Uri in Texas in 2021, widespread generation failures left more than 4.5 million customers without power, contributing to a public health crisis as residents resorted to dangerous methods to stay warm after outages knocked out most modern heating systems, including natural gas furnaces and heat pumps. Similarly, Hurricane Maria caused a near-total collapse of Puerto Rico’s electric grid in 2017, leaving some communities without electricity for months and severely disrupting access to healthcare, clean water, and other essential services.

These risks are not felt equally across communities: power outages hit vulnerable communities the hardest. Older adults, children, and people with disabilities face greater risks from extreme heat; they may rely on medications that need temperature control or have difficulty traveling to get care. On top of that, emergency response and recovery support aren’t always distributed fairly. Low-income and predominantly Black neighborhoods are more likely to face unsafe housing conditions and receive fewer resources during and after disasters. And for Small Island Developing States (SIDS), these challenges are magnified: disasters cost SIDS an estimated 18% of GDP on average, far above the 3% global average, and their geographic isolation makes resilient energy and infrastructure planning especially critical.

How do we enhance energy system resilience?

Key principles of resilient systems include:

• Diversity and redundancy
• Simple, passive, and flexible
• The use of locally available, renewable, or reclaimed resources

No single form of electricity generation can meet demand under all conditions. That’s why power grids rely on a diverse mix of resources across different technologies and locations to provide reliable electricity and strengthen resilience during disruptions.

In emergencies, communities should also draw on multiple power options — especially those that are local, renewable, or reclaimed. Local and renewable sources, such as solar and wind, depend less on long supply chains, so they are often more resilient to disruptions from extreme weather, conflict, or policy changes. Reclaimed energy can come from sources like landfill gas or excess heat from factories, turning waste into useful power and supporting local energy systems.

In emergencies, communities should draw on multiple power options — especially those that are local, renewable, or reclaimed.

Resilience must be built at multiple scales, from regional energy systems to neighborhood-level community infrastructure. To strengthen regional resilience, utilities and grid operators can prepare critical infrastructure for extreme weather; protect substations and power lines from wildfires, floods, and hurricanes; and improve emergency response plans to restore service after major disruptions. These measures help energy systems withstand and recover from severe events.

Energy system resilience through resilience hubs

One popular way to address a community’s resilience is to create resilience hubs, which serve as places where residents can access critical services before, during, and after a disaster, helping reduce community vulnerability. In non-crisis times, they function as spaces for community connection.

Hubs should be in trusted, accessible places like community centers, libraries, or churches, with transit and evacuation needs in mind so that everyone — including people without cars — can get there and receive help when it’s needed most. During recovery, they can also act as centralized hubs for resource distribution and access to support services, including government services like FEMA and other insurance assistance.

The best-functioning resilience hubs have a few characteristics in common.

• They are powered by clean energy systems. For example, they can combine on-site solar with battery storage to create a self-sufficient microgrid, a localized energy system that can operate independently from the main grid during outages.
• They implement energy efficiency measures to minimize the building’s overall energy usage and extend “hours of safety” for occupants even if the backup power system fails. Strategies could include utilizing weatherization, such as insulation and window upgrades; efficient electrical appliances, like heat pumps and induction stoves; and passive, nature-based designs including natural ventilation and daylighting or shade from tree coverage and water permeable concrete.
• They ensure access to potable water, emergency preparedness equipment, and uninterrupted communication.
• They are in a walkable and secure site that people already go to and trust.

Benefits beyond emergency preparedness

Resilient systems — especially resilience hubs — deliver benefits beyond maintaining access to critical services during disruptions. They can:

• Serve as trusted community gathering spaces that provide year-round benefits and services while offering immediate, localized support during disasters through access to power, communications, and emergency resources.
• Help prevent cascading system failures, improve coordination of response efforts, and accelerate community recovery, reducing downtime for businesses, households, and essential services.
• Lower energy costs by generating electricity locally and using batteries to reduce peak demand charges, which can account for 30%–70% of a commercial electricity bill.
• Strengthen the broader energy system by reducing strain on the grid during periods of high demand and limiting exposure to fuel price volatility by using local and renewable energy resources.

How do we scale and invest in energy system resilience?

For one, local governments, community-based organizations, and businesses can develop and fund resilience hubs. Resilience hubs work best when cities plan for them early and invest in them over time. That means updating local plans to account for climate risks like flooding and heat, setting aside ongoing funding, and starting small with the ability to expand.

Communities can tap into a mix of funding sources — such as state emergency funds, utility partnerships, green banks, and community investment models like bonds — while also offering technical assistance to support implementation. For example, RMI’s Community Energy Resilience Initiative in Puerto Rico has deployed solar and battery microgrids at critical facilities such as pharmacies and community service centers, creating a scalable model for resilient, community-based energy infrastructure. In Dominica, RMI and partners have applied a similar resilience-hub approach by supporting solar and battery storage systems at primary schools that also serve as hurricane shelters, helping them provide safe, reliable community support during major disruptions. And in Aspen, Colorado, a new solar and battery microgrid will power critical public services during outages.

While local governments often play a core role in developing and operating resilience hubs, they don’t always have the capacity or funding to serve as the host or project manager for a project. Instead, their role is often as facilitator or collaborative partner, supporting CBOs and businesses in developing their own hubs or hub networks.

This collaborative approach is reflected in post-Hurricane Helene recovery efforts in western North Carolina, where local leaders, nonprofits, regional organizations, and state agencies are working together to expand a network of solar- and battery-powered resilience hubs and microgrids designed to support communities during future outages and disasters.

Beyond scaling resilience hubs, there are a few strategies to increase community resilience.

• Develop and implement storm-resilience building codes and standards: Governments can direct funding toward strengthening the resilience of homes and businesses by supporting upgrades to building standards. They can also encourage the use of rooftop solar and storage to keep the lights on during outages.
• Explore opportunities for renewable energy generation and storage in municipal portfolios: Local municipalities can lead by example by evaluating their own municipal buildings. They can determine whether buildings can host systems like rooftop solar paired with battery storage to diversify power sources and enhance resilience.
• Utilize electric vehicles as additional energy capacity: Another strategy to explore is utilizing EVs as mobile batteries. In homes and buildings equipped with bidirectional charging, compatible electric vehicles can supply electricity during outages, further enhancing resilience.
• Establish durable local funding for resilience assets: Emergency funding resources have often ebbed and flowed, proving unreliable for local governments. Municipal governments can explore innovative financing mechanisms to support investment in these systems. For example, the City of Providence recently established a green revolving fund to support efficiency and renewable energy projects in their city.
• Partner with insurers, policymakers, regulators, academics, think tanks and other actors to identify risk and incentivize resilience against future disasters. Many insurers are taking resilience into account and exploring ways to incentivize more action within their spheres of influence, including offering premium reductions to more resilient properties, or tying payouts and future coverage to resilient rebuilding techniques after an event. In high-risk areas, insurers are also exploring offering direct incentives or partnerships with policymakers, standards setters, and other public and private organizations to support resilient construction standards and pre-disaster preparedness.

The tools and strategies to build more resilient communities already exist — we just need to put them into practice. By investing thoughtfully now and prioritizing the needs of the most vulnerable, communities can better withstand disruptions and recover more quickly. In doing so, they can save lives and protect people’s quality of life when it matters most.