Climate Change Impacts On The Bulk Power System: Assessing Vulnerabilities and Planning for Resilience

As the scale, speed, and implications of climate change come into focus, stakeholders in the electricity sector are finding it increasingly difficult to turn a blind eye. However, many have opted to attend to climate impacts in a piecemeal fashion, merely responding to particular extreme events- or types of extreme events, such as coastal storms or floods- and failing to consider the larger phenomenon. This is true of the bulk power system (BPS) in regions overseen by Independent System Operators and Regional Transmission Organizations (collectively, ISO-RTOs), none of which have comprehensively assessed their system's vulnerabilities to climate change. Lacking such assessments, ISO/RTOs cannot plan for the impacts of climate change, and thereby ensure the continued reliability and resilience of the BPS. This paper offers ISO/RTOs advice on how to plan for climate change and identifies resources and processes they could employ in the planning process. In addition to this, the authors offer six specific recommendations for all ISO/RTOs to follow in order to properly plan for climate change.