What does it mean to plan for a resilient energy future?

Becoming energy resilient means being able to withstand or recover from disruptions in your local energy supply. It is especially relevant for communities that experience a lot of outages.

Planning for resilience is a proactive approach to ensure the availability of local energy systems in the face of changing conditions. Energy resilience has become particularly critical in the face of climate change and natural disasters. The experience of local communities such as Mallacoota or Lismore in the last three years has increased awareness of the need to plan for local energy resilience. This will help maintain critical functions in emergencies, for example by keeping communication infrastructure available and water pumps running.

These are some other energy and carbon related goals that communities sometimes plan for:

• Net Zero Energy

• Totally Renewable

• Net Zero Emissions

• Economic Development and community wealth building. This does’t always include strong climate and energy goals but it should!

Why is planning helpful?

A plan provides a strategic framework for achieving your goals and measuring your progress, and maps a path to get there. These are some of the steps:

• Engage with your community. This will determine what goals to aim for, and how you can get there.

• Set your goals and your timeframe.

• Work out the steps you need to reach your goals. These will include community engagement, setting organisational structures and governance, technology choices, finance and fundraising.

Often these processes reach beyond your community group and involve local government and link to their strategies for community action.

Who is doing the planning?

Planning can involve your core team, your full membership or your whole community. If your goals are for the whole community, it often makes sense for the planning process to be led by someone who represents the whole community, like your local council. Waiting for government shouldn't stop community groups though. Announcing the goal and showing people the plan can be a good way to get people on board and supporting your work. A plan often answers the following questions:

• What are we trying to achieve? why and by when?

• How much money, time and skills are we likely to need? where will we find these resources?

• Who needs to be involved? Who is responsible for making sure we get stuff done?

• How will we keep track of progress?

• How are we going to keep everyone motivated and doing their part?

• How are we going to tell our story and keep engaging a wider part of our community?

Benefits of creating a Plan for Resilience

Planning for resilience can:

• Keep critical services running: - help to ensure the continuity of critical services,

• Promote economic stability

• Enhance environmental sustainability

• Empowers communities to navigate the complexities of the energy landscape.

• Help mitigate risks associated with you energy systems, simply by identifying and mapping out the critical (energy) infrastructure in your community.

In addition the following benefits are associated with a plan for resilience:

• Increased energy independence: Developing distributed energy resources and building energy storage can increase a community's energy independence, reducing its dependence on traditional utility companies.

• Cost savings: By incorporating energy efficiency measures, a community can reduce its energy consumption, which can lead to cost savings for residents and businesses.

• Economic development: A renewable energy system can attract new businesses and industries that are looking for reliable and affordable energy, this can help to drive economic growth and job creation.

Challenges

Depending on the complexity of the initiative, there are a number of challenges associated with planning for energy resilience:

• It can be difficult to anticipate and prepare for all possible shocks and stressors.

• Knowledge and information about the local energy system, infrastructure and electricity data is required and can be difficult to obtain.

• Collaborations with energy network providers (for example to get local energy data) and retailers can be challenging and very time consuming

When is creating a Plan for Resilience a good choice?

Planning out your initiative always makes sense. However, planning for a resilient future for your entire community is ambitious and requires the whole town to be on board with your ideas, in order to co-create and co-own the process.