Grid climate risk models

Aligning long-term capital investments in grid infrastructure with a changing climate risk profile over the same period is a challenging planning problem for utilities. To address it, Rhizome offers a 3-D modeling tool that combines historical failure causes with high-resolution climate projections. This capability allows electric utilities to forecast potential asset failures over a 50-year horizon, and incorporate these assessments in their planning. The tool also measures social and economic impacts of resilience-boosting grid investments, to inform designs that are both cost-effective and equitable.

The advent of long-range infrastructure forecasting that models physical infrastructure, climate risks, and the impacts of infrastructure performance on served communities points towards a future where utilities at all scales—both regional utilities and microgrid operators alike—will be better equipped to maintain or even improve on reliability and equity KPIs, while also being more transparent about the return on their grid investments.