The Council’s 2021 Power Plan directed the RTF to investigate methods that could be used to quantify the value of conservation measures for building resiliency. In 2022, the RTF contracted Apex Analytics to perform this study, which focused on the ability for a commercial or residential building to prepare, mitigate, or recover from infrequent grid outage events.
The goals of the study were to:
- Assess the current literature and research to study the relationship between energy efficiency and building resilience to determine the potential to quantify this and include in the Council’s modeling for cost-effectiveness.
- Identify and recommend a cost approach to value resiliency in buildings.
- Develop a tool using the recommended approach and test by estimating the resilience value for a set of energy efficiency measures in one city in the Northwest.
The study determined that the resilience benefits of energy efficiency measures can be quantified by using a cost-based valuation approach. While some uncertainty still exists, the results of the study provide a solid first step in quantifying the value of resilience in buildings from conservation measures.
The final resources from the work in 2022 include:
- Literature Review (May 2022)
- Energy Efficiency Resilience Valuation Methodology Memorandum (December 2022)
- Presentation to the RTF (February 2023)
- Presentation to the Conservation Resource Advisory Committee (February 2023)
The results of the resiliency valuation work were also presented at the 2024 ACEEE Summer Study and provide a concise overview of the project and its results.
Following the conclusion of the initial study in 2022, the Council staff received feedback from both the RTF and the Council’s Conservation Resources Advisory Committee (CRAC) on potential improvements, and several new studies on resilience valuation were released. In 2024, Apex Analytics was contracted to produce an update of the Resilience Valuation Tool to incorporate feedback from the CRAC and RTF, as well as consider any necessary updates or improvements to the valuation approach given recent publications of alternative approaches. Through the review of the recent publications, Apex identified new data sources but recommended maintaining the original valuation approach and focused updates to the RTV on incorporating new outage data and backup system valuation metrics. The final materials from this follow-up work included:
- Literature Review Scan Memo (July 2024)
- Resilience Valuation Tool Results (January 2025)
- Presentation to RTF (February 2025)
The Council anticipates incorporating the valuation of resilience into the residential weatherization measures for the 9th Power Plan. For more details on the resilience valuation in the 9th Plan, please see the Quantifiable Resource Cost Framework.