From the Front Lines of Resilience – Part 1: Why Utilities Must Rethink Reliability in a Climate-Changed World

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Rob Brook

GM & SVP of Americas at Neara

Rob combines expertise from the software and utility sectors as a former Senior Director at PG&E.

I had the privilege of joining leaders from PG&E, LCRA, Quanta Technology, and IEEE on a panel at the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) Summit, discussing Climate Resiliency & Major Event Response. The message was clear: utilities are at an inflection point.

What used to be seasonal challenges — wildfires, storms, and extreme temperatures — are now year-round threats. This isn’t a series of unfortunate anomalies. It’s the new normal, and the grid is fighting to keep up.

With that, utilities are facing a new operational reality, and the traditional paradigms of reliability and resilience are shifting. Reliability used to mean ensuring performance under predictable, frequent stresses. Resilience was about preparing for rare, high-impact events. But today, those categories are converging. The scale and speed of climate-driven events demand a new kind of operational approach—one that views reliability through the lens of resilience.

Utility leaders are navigating a complex landscape marked by unlimited risk, limited capital, and increasingly stringent regulations. Every investment must count. The question to ask isn’t “What should we do?” Industry leaders know what they need to do. And it’s a lot. The real question is, “What should we do first?” Often, what comes first is fixing the thing that’s already been broken.

That’s where the industry has a big opportunity – to move from reacting to risks after they materialize to getting ahead of them. Instead of guessing how networks might behave in a given scenario, utilities need a clear and immediate understanding of everything that puts their network at risk, from terrain and structural asset conditions to customer impact zones and stress responses. This level of visibility will enable utilities to develop a roadmap to resilience based on risk-factor prioritization and validated investment decisions, preparing them for any climate scenario. 

We can’t afford to treat resilience as a sidecar to reliability. The two are becoming indistinguishable. The only way forward is to build a grid that’s not only designed to last but also built to adapt.


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