Utilities face a difficult trade-off between renewing ageing assets and investing in resilience against more frequent drought. Both matter; budgets do not stretch to everything.
Our modelling across several supply systems suggests that, measured by customer minutes protected, targeted interconnection and storage frequently outperform broad renewal programmes.
Resilience is a network property. It is rarely solved one asset at a time.
Implications for investment plans
We recommend utilities test their programmes against at least three climate and demand scenarios, and report resilience using the same model they plan with.
