Resource Adequacy for the Evolving Power System

Resource Adequacy (RA) is undergoing a structural shift as utilities face unprecedented uncertainty: rapid electrification, extreme weather volatility, surging renewable penetration, and new regulatory mandates. Traditional RA frameworks are struggling to keep pace, leaving utilities and grid operators exposed to reliability, affordability, and planning risks.

This course delivers practical approaches for RA leaders who must adapt quickly. Participants will learn how to quantify reliability risk, evaluate the true capacity contribution of emerging resources, compare modeling tools, improve planning assumptions, and communicate trade-offs to regulators and stakeholders.

The course emphasizes real-world applications, case study insights, and tools to strengthen RA planning for 2026–2035:

• Clear frameworks to justify RA decisions to executives, regulators, and stakeholders
  • Tools for balancing cost recovery, affordability, and reliability risk
  • Approaches for integrating probabilistic methods without overwhelming internal bandwidth
  • Lessons learned from the first wave of market-based ELCC and accreditation reforms
  • Practical guidance for building more weather-resilient RA portfolios

Gain the tools and context needed to strengthen your organization’s resource adequacy planning for the future grid.

• Differentiate historical planning margin assumptions from modern reliability risks driven by weather extremes, electrification, DER growth, and forecast uncertainty
• Analyze the drivers behind today’s heightened RA pressure: climate volatility, load shape evolution, energy-limited resources, and policy mandates
• Apply NERC’s latest seasonal and scenario-based methodologies to real RA planning decisions
• Recognize RA roles across vertically integrated utilities, ISOs/RTOs, co-ops/munis, and balancing authorities, and understand how coordination affects risk.
• Interpret RA metrics (LOLP, LOLE, EUE, ELCC) and connect them to reliability outcomes, cost impacts, and value-of-lost-load thresholds
• Assess peak, flexible, and firm capacity contributions and how to evaluate portfolio flexibility needs
• Evaluate ELCC benefits and limitations, including emerging lessons from accreditation reforms and weather-based risk modeling
• Identify contributions and constraints of DERs, hybrid resources, and storage, and when their modeled capacity diverges from operational reality
• Apply IRP and case study insights to refine capacity assumptions under evolving weather/climate conditions
• Identify climate-driven risks, correlated outages, and load growth uncertainty for long-term RA planning
• Compare RA modeling approaches and choose the right tool for your organization’s bandwidth
• Apply adequacy modeling to IRPs, transmission strategy, procurement planning, and market structures