Module Overview

The Baseline Development module guides the collection and review of data required to establish risk to critical missions from disruptions and resilience gaps in energy and water supplies. The resilience planning team focuses on the specific critical loads that require energy or water to perform critical functions. A critical load may be housed in a building where critical functions are carried out, or associated with a piece of infrastructure, such as an onsite well pump, that supplies water to a critical function.

Once critical loads are identified, the resilience planning team quantifies the energy and water requirements of each of those loads. Then the team characterizes the baseline condition of any redundant energy or water systems in place and the site’s ability to meet those critical energy and water requirements in the event of a utility-level disruption. It is important to note that redundant systems include:

• Onsite energy and water systems (such as a PV array, CHP system, or water well) that operate daily and can be redirected to provide backup power or water to critical loads in the event of disruption of primary energy or water supply systems
• Redundant systems (e.g., diesel generators, water storage tanks) that provide energy or water only during a disruption of primary energy or water supply systems.

The condition of onsite generation equipment and backup systems is important, as sites typically have greater influence over these systems than they do over primary energy and water supply systems, which are often provided by a third-party utility. This characterization of baseline equipment and systems conditions becomes a key input to risk quantification in the next module.

The resilience planning team also gathers data on the condition of primary energy and water systems (e.g., distribution lines, water treatment facilities, electrical substations) to the site, focusing on those that supply critical loads.

Once the critical supply sources are understood, assess the baseline conditions of these systems, examining details such as the following items:

• Design for robustness to withstand the most likely hazard and threat scenarios; design to meet current and future capacity requirements
• Availability of redundant feeds in the supply system
• Documented O&M practices and logs of performance, known problems with resource quality or delivery that may affect system reliability
• Documentation of contingency plans and parts inventories to determine recovery times for partial and full recovery.

Questions for site operations personnel and utility providers in the TRN Resource: Interview Questions will also help establish the primary energy and water system conditions.

Outcomes

• Documented baseline condition of onsite redundant energy and water systems and offsite supply systems for the risk assessment
• Documented gaps in data availability

Status, Assignments, and Resources