Defining Resiliency Program Objectives – Playbook Review Part 2
As we discussed in the previous post, a successful resiliency program aims to shorten power outage duration and outage frequency. The first step in implementing such programs is to define the program’s objectives. After reading this post and consulting the corresponding chapter in the Playbook, you should be able to successfully identify relevant program objectives.
What Do You Want to Accomplish?
Building clarity around your resiliency program is critical. A scenario-based risk assessment might consider six areas where a single goal or objective could be set to focus resiliency efforts. In general, nearly all resiliency efforts are designed to positively impact customer satisfaction. Consider choosing goals like:
- Aesthetics
- Outage Frequency Reduction
- Outage Duration Reduction
- Outage Scale or Impact Reduction
- Poor Performing Underground Cable Replacement
- Align with “Smart Grid/Advanced Metering”
Consider a Targeted Approach
Some resiliency techniques such as undergrounding can be more expensive in upfront costs than traditional construction. However, it should be remembered that successful resiliency strategies will reduce long-term taxpayer costs, improve customer satisfaction, reduce outage time, and achieve other areas of value. A phased or “targeted” approach could help with program implementation. Drivers of this phasing might include:
- Reduced ratepayer cost impact compared to more aggressive implementation
- Phased implementation that Public Utility Commissions and State legislators tend to support that have multiple opportunities to reassess implementation success and ratepayer impact
- Decreased impact on the current workforce shortage to complete the work
- Mitigation of construction cost impacts in a resource-constrained and highly competitive market
Download the Playbook
The next step of developing a resiliency program is to establish how the program will support the overall objective. We encourage interested readers to download a free copy of the Playbook for a more in-depth discussion of defining program objectives including an accompanying case study.