The Department of Energy (“DOE”), Office of Electricity,  recently issued a Request for Information (“RFI”), seeking comments regarding cost-effective ways to make electric infrastructure systems more resilient against severe weather events. DOE says, “The purpose of this RFI is to gather “relevant consensus-based codes, specifications, and standards,” state and industry best practices, and other pertinent materials to provide guidance for enhancing the physical and operational resilience of electric grid systems and their components, e.g. generation, transmission, control centers, and distribution facilities, against these events.”

DOE hopes that gathering this information will:

  • Enable it to synthesize a body of existing expert knowledge about how best to cost effectively enhance weather-related grid resilience and make this information broadly available to interested stakeholders including policy officials
  • Assist the Federal Emergency Management Agency (“FEMA”) in its implementation of the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018
  • Identify important information gaps that need to be addressed

Comments are due August 23, 2019 and should be submitted electronically, mail to: grid.resilience@hq.doe.gov,  with “Grid Resilience” in the subject line. Commenters are cautioned not to include any document or information that might be considered commercially sensitive, proprietary, confidential, critical electric infrastructure information, or classified for reasons of national security.  Additional details regarding this RFI and requirements for submitting comments can be found here.