This action focuses on organizing the team that will execute the resilience planning effort and identifying stakeholders whose input is required in the process. Resilience planning for energy and water disruptions requires input and expertise from both internal and external stakeholders. Forming a core resilience planning team to direct efforts, coordinate stakeholders, and track progress contributes consistency and efficiency to the complex task of resilience planning. Leadership should designate a resilience planning team leader to direct the TRN process and regularly communicate progress. Engaging leadership in the TRN process and providing regular updates helps ensure that planning efforts align with other site initiatives. Leadership support is also essential for securing funding and approval to implement solutions identified through the TRN.

Identifying and engaging a range of stakeholders facilitates a more robust understanding of site-level conditions, potential risks, and possible solution sets. Stakeholder engagement throughout the process can also help ensure that departments or offices across a site are coordinated and moving in a streamlined fashion toward common resilience objectives. Since different stakeholders, both internal and external to a site, will have different purviews and areas of expertise, defining roles and responsibilities as they relate to the resilience planning effort—and identifying where in the TRN process different stakeholders might need to be engaged—is an initial step in building a realistic trajectory for carrying out the TRN effort.

This action assists the resilience planning team in identifying and documenting existing policies and plans that could impact or intersect with resilience planning efforts. The intent of data collection in the Site-Level Planning module is to better understand the site planning context, ensure the effort builds upon existing plans, identify planning areas that may need to be more robust, and coordinate resilience efforts with other related initiatives. The resilience planning team specifically identifies and reviews data to: (1) inform the development of resilience planning priorities (Action 3); (2) provide insight to critical functions (Action 4); and (3) begin to identify gaps in site-wide preparedness for emergencies and continuity of operations for energy and water disruption scenarios (Action 5).

Relevant information to collect for this action includes policies at the organization (i.e., agency) and site level regarding resilience goals, existing site-specific plans, and broader community and utility service provider policies and plans that might impact a site. More detailed data collection will occur in the Baseline Development module focused on the energy and water systems that supply critical loads.

This action will define the site-level resilience priorities that guide the planning process and establish the scope of the TRN planning effort. Resilience priorities offer strategic direction and a conceptual framework for the resilience planning process.

A scope and boundaries statement enables the resilience planning team to focus efforts and resources by defining the boundaries of what the TRN effort will include. The scope of the TRN assessment should be defined by: (1) site geographical or operational boundaries and facilities; (2) resources assessed (i.e., electric, gas, and/or water); and (3) integration points with site priorities (e.g., energy efficiency, cybersecurity, sustainability, water conservation). Energy and water resources included in the scope will shape stakeholder involvement and the type of data collected throughout the TRN.

In this action, the resilience planning team engages site leadership and mission continuity personnel to identify the site’s critical functions and establish their relative criticality, or importance. The intent of the TRN is to help organizations manage the risk to critical missions from disruptions in energy and water services. The TRN Resource: Relationship between Risk and Resilience provides more information about how risk and resilience are connected. Risk-informed resilience planning for energy and water resources must begin with an understanding of what the site’s critical missions are, and what critical functions enable those missions. Criticality weighting factors are used in the Risk Assessment module to help users identify where risk matters most in assuring continued operations. This will help focus brainstorming of resilience solutions in the Solution Development module.

It is also necessary to map critical functions to the energy and water systems that support them. In this action, users take the first step of mapping each critical function to the facilities that either house those functions or provide a critical supply of energy or water. In the Baseline Development module, this list of facilities will be used as a starting point for identifying the specific energy and water loads within them, which must be sustained.

Maintaining a running list of resilience gaps identified throughout the TRN modules will help the resilience planning team gain a more comprehensive understanding of the resilience needs of the site. A list of gaps will inform later modules and provide context for brainstorming resilience solutions. Resilience gaps can come in a variety of forms, including technological, operational, or institutional. Examples include gaps in data, equipment capabilities, policies, and training or staffing. The TRN is designed to be an iterative process and the resilience planning team will therefore need to continually revisit and add information on resilience gaps when prompted by “Record Resilience Gaps” call-out boxes during each of the subsequent TRN modules.

This action identifies and consolidates sources of information used to establish the site’s critical energy and water requirements and baseline conditions of energy and water systems. In Site-Level Planning, data collection focused on establishing critical missions and functions and the status of site-wide planning for emergencies and business continuity. In Baseline Development, data collection focuses on the facilities that carry out those critical functions and the energy and water systems that supply and provide redundancy to critical loads.

In this action, the resilience planning team seeks to understand how the facilities that perform critical functions rely upon energy and water. Facilities will have multiple energy and water loads, yet not all will be critical. The resilience planning team collects data primarily through interviews with mission owners and site operators to establish the specific systems required to sustain critical functions and what the energy and water requirements of those systems are. These are referred to as the critical loads. Additionally, the team identifies how long a critical load could be lost without unacceptable interruption to the supported critical function.

This action characterizes the baseline conditions of redundant energy and water systems that enable critical loads to operate during an outage. Baseline conditions are examined in terms of the site’s preparedness to respond to disruptions, redundant systems in place, robustness of system design, and plans for rapid recovery.

Data collection for this action focuses on baseline conditions of redundant energy and water systems, as sites typically have greater influence over these than they do over primary energy and water supply infrastructure. This data is used to inform risk scoring in the Risk Assessment module. Data is also gathered on the condition of the primary energy and water supply systems. While primary supply system characteristics are not explicitly considered in risk assessment, understanding the utility’s preparedness to respond to emergencies, redundancies built into the supply system, robustness of system design, and whether the utility is positioned for rapid recovery, can help identify additional solutions that would enhance site resilience.

Maintaining a running list of resilience gaps identified throughout the TRN modules will help the resilience planning team gain a more comprehensive understanding of the resilience needs of the site. A list of gaps will inform later modules and provide context for brainstorming resilience solutions. Resilience gaps can come in a variety of forms, including technological, operational, or institutional. Examples include gaps in data, equipment capabilities, policies, and training or staffing. The TRN is designed to be an iterative process and the resilience planning team will therefore need to continually revisit and add information on resilience gaps when prompted by “Record Resilience Gaps” call-out boxes during each of the subsequent TRN modules.

The purpose of this activity is to finish characterizing the critical loads, identified in the Baseline Development module. This includes determining which redundant systems that support the critical loads would be the first to be used and which ones are secondary (i.e., will only be used if there is a failure of the first redundant system). Additionally, for some critical functions a site may have means for temporarily maintaining functionality without reliance on the critical load. These factors influence the contributions of critical loads to risk.

The purpose of this action is to identify hazards (of natural or accidental origin) and threats (of malicious or deliberate origin) that have the potential to disrupt energy or water supply to the site. This information is a key input into the risk assessment. The identification of hazards and threats begins the process of building risk scenarios across critical loads.

In this action, review the risk scenarios calculated based on the data collected in previous actions about energy and water systems that support critical loads. Most users will take no direct action, but rather review information generated automatically by the TRN to better understand how risk is calculated.

This action helps review the Risk Assessment results to summarize how risk is distributed across hazards and threats, critical loads, and risk scenarios, and record the key interpretations that will be used to guide development of resilience solutions. For risk scenarios with high-risk results, the user will consider which model inputs generated that level of risk, and also consider any implicit factors that may contribute to the risk of these scenarios. This analysis will highlight some key resilience gaps, which will be used in the Solution Development module.

Maintaining a running list of resilience gaps identified throughout the TRN modules will help the resilience planning team gain a more comprehensive understanding of the resilience needs of the site. A list of gaps will inform later modules and provide context for brainstorming resilience solutions. Resilience gaps can come in a variety of forms, including technological, operational, or institutional. Examples include gaps in data, equipment capabilities, policies, and training or staffing. The TRN is designed to be an iterative process and the resilience planning team will therefore need to continually revisit and add information on resilience gaps when prompted by “Record Resilience Gaps” call-out boxes during each of the subsequent TRN modules.

This action assists the resilience planning team in completing and analyzing the list of resilience gaps introduced in the Site-Level Planning module and updated in the Baseline Development and Risk Assessment modules. The TRN uses a risk-informed approach to resilience planning, and a complete list of resilience gaps will inform the process of brainstorming solutions that reduce risks and ensure uninterrupted operations or quick recovery after a disruptive event occurs. Resilience gaps can come in a variety of forms including operational, institutional, and technological. Each of the gaps identified through the TRN process will also be characterized by the resilience attributes impacted to allow for comprehensive consideration of potential solutions to enhance site resilience.

This action provides an approach and several examples for considering potential resilience-enhancing solutions to address the resilience gaps analyzed in Action 1 of this module. This approach is intended to help identify solutions that will enhance the resilience of and reduce risk to energy and water systems that support critical functions and loads. This action is intended to brainstorm a comprehensive list of solutions that are not yet limited by feasibility, costs, or priorities. Additional analyses will be conducted in the Solution Prioritization module.

This action provides an approach for considering if combining potential resilience-enhancing solutions could provide broader, more comprehensive resilience solutions that provide the site with additional benefits compared to single solutions. This action is intended to review the previously brainstormed solutions and identify where combinations might make sense for the site. Analyses of solution set feasibility, costs, or how well they meet site priorities will be conducted in the Solution Prioritization module.

In this action, the resilience planning team will identify up to six ‘go/no go‘ screening criteria to narrow the list of solutions down to those that could conceivably be implemented within the existing environment. None of the potential solutions identified in the Solution Development module will be discarded, as changing conditions can lead to reconsideration of solutions that were initially categorized as ‘no go.’ Preserving the full list of ideas for future use can also help sites uncover key issues that may need to be addressed along the way.

In this action, the user reviews each screened solution to understand how it could reduce risk by reducing consequence and/or vulnerability. This information is then used to model potential risk reduction for each solution. The semi-quantitative method in the TRN is used to help generate a prioritized list of resilience-enhancing solutions.

In this action, the user evaluates the emissions impact of each resilience solution. The emissions impact refers to measures that reduce a site’s carbon dioxide emissions. This emissions impact is considered alongside risk reduction potential and other decision criteria when prioritizing resilience solutions. This action uses a high-level approach that will help the user determine whether a solution will provide a notable change in the site’s energy-related CO₂ emissions, the metric for a solution’s emissions impact. The analysis focuses on emissions reductions (or increases) resulting from changes to the site’s energy systems (i.e., electricity and/or natural gas), with a specific focus on CO₂ emissions. The information generated from this action will serve as one of several inputs considered under this module that will help inform the overall solution benefit potential in Action 5: Prioritize Solutions.

This action guides the resilience planning team through review of the resilience priorities documented in the Site-Level Planning module to develop additional prioritization criteria that can be used to evaluate and prioritize solutions. By developing a clear process for evaluating the relative merits of each solution, the resilience planning team can identify which solutions it will propose for implementation. This action also guides the resilience planning team in documenting rough cost estimates associated with each solution as this can serve as an important consideration in the prioritization of solutions.

In this action, users will prioritize solutions based on risk reduction, prioritization criteria, and costs. Considering these different factors allows for a more holistic prioritization process.