Energy Resilience Through Grid Modernization and 

Renewables Integration 

Critical Infrastructure Resilience Workshop - December 7, 2018

Washington, D.C.

Juan Torres 

Associate Laboratory Director 

Energy Systems Integration 

Nick Laws 

Engineer 

Applied Engineering and Modeling
 

 

 

 

 

A Definition of Resilience

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The ability to anticipate, prepare for, and adapt to changing conditions

and withstand, respond to, and recover rapidly from disruptions through

adaptable and holistic planning and technical solutions.
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Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium

GMLC Co-Leads
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GMLC Framework for Security and Resilience

Based on NIST Cybersecurity Framework

Identify:

Develop understanding of threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences to all hazards 

Outcome: Improved risk management and streamlined information sharing 

Protect:

Inherent system-of-systems grid resilience 

Outcome: Increase the grid’s ability to withstand malicious or natural events

Detect: 

Real-time system characterization of events and system failures

Outcome: Accelerated state awareness and enhanced event detection

Respond: 

Maintain critical functionality during events and hazards

Outcome: Advanced system adaptability and graceful degradation 

Recover:

Real-time device management and transformer mobilization 

Outcome: Timely post-event recovery of grid and community operations 
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Example GMLC Resilience Projects

• Grid Resilience & Intelligence Platform (GRIP) – SLAC, LBNL

• Resilient Alaskan Distribution system Improvements using Automation, Network analysis, Control,

and Energy storage (RADIANCE) – INL, PNNL, SNL

• Increasing Distribution System Resiliency using Flexible DER and Microgrid Assets Enabled by

OpenFMB – PNNL, ORNL, NREL

• Integration of Responsive Residential Loads into Distribution Management Systems – ORNL, PNNL

• CleanStart DERMS- LLNL, PNNL, LANL

• Designing Resilient Communities: A consequence-based approach for grid investment - SNL
Source: EIA

Changes to the electricity mix: 

Natural gas and renewable 

energy generated nearly 50% of 

U.S. electricity in 2016, up from 

30% in 2007

Natural gas increased 

from 22% to 34%

Renewable energy climbed 

from 8% to 16%

The Nation’s Electricity 

Generation Mix is Changing
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0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Probability of Surviving Outage 

[%] 

Length of Outage [Days]

Solar+Storage+Diesel Diesel Only

Why Renewable Energy for Resilient Systems

• Diesel sensitivity to fuel supply chains

• especially in extreme weather events, which along with outages are increasing.

• Diesel back-up often neglected

• high probability of failure; single point of failure

• RE systems have additional grid-connected benefits

• diesel usually precluded due to air quality impacts.

Figure source: Kate Anderson et al. Quantifying and Monetizing Renewable Energy Resiliency. Sustainability, 10(4), 933, 2018, https://doi.org/10.3390/su10040933 

2.1-Day Net 

Resiliency Gain 

@ 90%

Probability
provide grid support services,

8

Key Challenge 1: Control Systems

pjm.com

With advanced, autonomous control systems we can:

meet critical loads during outages,

time

kW

Frequency Regulation Signal

and reduce operating costs for system owners.

Dispatch during outage from 

REopt.nrel.gov/tool
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Key Challenge 2: the Value of Resilience

Example of quantifying resilience from materials

science (image credit: engineeringarchives.com)

Perspective from Gary Larson.

Perspective

What matters to you?

Metric

How you quantify resilience

Value

How do you assign value?
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Global and interdependent energy systems

Mini electric grids

What is critical to...

• Keeping my business open

• Health care facilities

• Emergency response

• National security

• Global energy markets

Utilities

Microgrids

States, cities, & communities

Homes and businesses

Step 1: Perspective What matters to you?
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Image credit: 1to1media.com

Step 2: Metrics for Resilience

Many metrics have been proposed, but no agreement on the best measures.

Credit to: Caitlin Murphy at NREL for summary of existing metrics (only a cross-sample shown here).

See https://gridmod.labworks.org/sites/default/files/resources/GMLC1%201_Reference_Manual_2%201_final_2017_06_01_v4_wPNNLNo_1.pdf for more.

Utility perspective

• Customer-hours of outages

• Customer energy not served

• Avg (or %) customers experiencing an outage

during a specific time period

• Cost of damages

Community perspective

• Critical services without power after backup fails

• Key military facilities w/o power

Business perspective

• Lost revenues, assets, and/or perishables

Depends on your perspective

A few examples:
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Step 3: Value of Resilience

Microscopic example

How do you value what matters to you?

Macroscopic example

J. Giraldez, S. Booth, K. Anderson, and K. Massey, “Valuing Energy Security: Customer Damage Function Methodology and Case Studies at DoD Installations”. NREL/ TP-7A30-55913, October 2012 

Note the time varying value – currently integrating into REopt

$/metric
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Key Challenge 2: the Value of Resilience

Perspective

What matters to you?

Metric

How you quantify resilience

Value

How do you assign value?

We made this problem 

tractable by considering:

1. Perspective = commercial building

2. Metric = unmet critical load [kWh]

3. Value = Value of Lost Load (VoLL)

[$/kWh] ~willingness-to-pay

(And addressed the control challenge using REopt)
Solar PV & Storage for Resilience 

1

4

Figure source: Laws, Nicholas D., Kate Anderson, Nicholas A. DiOrio, Xiangkun Li, and Joyce McLaren. “Impacts of Valuing Resilience on Cost-Optimal PV and Storage 

Systems for Commercial Buildings.” Renewable Energy, Volume 127, 2018, Pages 896-909, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2018.05.011. 

Balance 

cost of system

with

grid-connected 

benefits ...
Solar PV & Storage for Resilience 

1

5

Balance 

cost of system

with

grid-connected 

benefits ...

Figure source: Laws, Nicholas D., Kate Anderson, Nicholas A. DiOrio, Xiangkun Li, and Joyce McLaren. “Impacts of Valuing Resilience on Cost-Optimal PV and Storage 

Systems for Commercial Buildings.” Renewable Energy, Volume 127, 2018, Pages 896-909, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2018.05.011. 

... and 

resiliency 

benefits. 
1

6

The maximum islandable premium is the difference of the Net Present Values

(NPV).

Figure source: Laws, Nicholas D., Kate Anderson, Nicholas A. DiOrio, Xiangkun Li, and Joyce McLaren. “Impacts of Valuing Resilience on Cost-Optimal PV and Storage 

Systems for Commercial Buildings.” Renewable Energy, Volume 127, 2018, Pages 896-909, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2018.05.011. 

Solar PV & Storage for Resilience 
1

7

In some cases, valuing resilience can make PV and storage cost effective where it 

was not before.

Figure source: Laws, Nicholas D., Kate Anderson, Nicholas A. DiOrio, Xiangkun Li, and Joyce McLaren. “Impacts of Valuing Resilience on Cost-Optimal PV and Storage 

Systems for Commercial Buildings.” Renewable Energy, Volume 127, 2018, Pages 896-909, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2018.05.011. 

Solar PV & Storage for Resilience 
Photo credit: Dennis Schroeder/NREL

Ongoing work

How can we monetize the Value of Resilience?

Banking, Insurance

- lower rates for lower risk assets

Government incentives

- ITC could include islandable premium
Thank you

NREL/PR-7A40-72884

This work was authored by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, operated by Alliance for Sustainable Energy, 

LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308. Funding provided by U.S. 

Department of Federal Energy Management Program, Renewable Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office, and the 

Clean Energy Group. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S. 

Government. The U.S. Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges 

that the U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the 

published form of this work, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes.
Back up slides
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1

Methods for Determining VoLL

• Blackout studies

• record real damage costs after event

• Willingness to pay for

avoidance

• Direct costs

• from hypothetical scenarios

• Production function

• estimate costs from lost production

(commercial/industrial) or lost time

(residential, using household income)

• Revealed preferences

• equivocate outage costs with money

spent on mitigation measures, such as

backup power supply and interruptible

supply contracts

Direct (survey) Indirect

Schroder and Kuckshinrichs. "Value of Lost Load: An efficient economic indicator for Power Supply Security? A Literature Review ". Frontiers in Energy Research (2015) 3.

de Nooij et al. "The value of supply security; The costs of power interruptions: Economic input for damage reduction and investment in networks". Energy Economics (2007) 

29 77-295.