Electric cooperatives working to meet today’s biggest grid challenges—like rocketing demand, resource integration and extreme weather—have a new resource for guidance and insights.

NRECA and the Smart Electric Power Alliance have released a Resilience Planning Playbook for Electric Cooperative Utilities after more than a year of work with 30 co-ops across the country to identify drivers of change and solutions for enhancing resiliency.

The report looks at key considerations for building resilience, including critical infrastructure needs, data systems and integration, member engagement and funding. It also examines vegetation management and grid hardening as well as the potential for behind-the-meter resources to contribute to improved resilience outcomes for members.

“We explore traditional and nontraditional planning elements and on-the-ground solutions for co-ops at every stage,” said Allison Hamilton, NRECA’s cooperative energy solutions and consumer member engagement director and a co-author of the playbook.

“With this resource, co-ops can learn from one another with real-world insights to resilience planning that will help them protect their members from costly service disruptions and prepare for the future’s evolving energy demands.”

Researchers gleaned information about these resilience planning areas through multiple co-op workshops, case studies and on-site visits.

“Resilience is the ability of the grid to withstand and recover from disturbances,” said Jared Leader, SEPA’s senior director of resilience and one of the playbook‘s co-authors. “The particular resilience challenges facing co-ops depend on a variety of factors, including geography, topography, system design and member preferences. The case study approach gives readers a window into a range of possible tools and options to build the resilience of the grid, depending on their specific needs and challenges.”

Co-op case studies include Lancaster-Ohio-based South-Central Power’s Future Strategic Plan, which prioritizes capital projects based on reliability, load growth, outage frequency and other criteria.

Another looks at how Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative in Hughesville is meeting state requirements to file distribution system planning reports to reduce emissions, target upgrades in vulnerable areas and integrate energy storage, among other things.

A case study on Kenergy discusses how the Henderson, Kentucky-based co-op plans to use its broadband fiber deployment across its membership to facilitate demand-response programs, distributed energy resource integration and many smart grid applications to enhance its system resilience.

“This resource developed by NRECA and SEPA, with its case studies, deep dive planning concepts and more, give co-ops everywhere real-world approaches to the new challenges impacting their systems,” said Hamilton.

“Ultimately, this playbook can be used by electric co-ops not only to find solutions today but to plan for a more resilient and sustainable future.”