NASEO-NARUC Grid Resilience Summit Agenda

State Energy Offices and Public Utility Commissions will share firsthand results from grid resilience investments funded through the Grid Resilience State and Tribal Formula Grant Program (Section 40101(d)). Panelists will highlight what has been built and deployed to date, early performance and reliability outcomes, and the practical lessons learned in standing up and implementing these projects. The discussion will offer a state and utility perspective on how formula funding has translated into on-the-ground resilience gains - and what other states and utilities can take away as they plan their own investments.

Sustained grid resilience investment depends on strong, well-structured coordination between states and utilities. This panel explores the tools and frameworks helping to formalize that relationship; panelists will discuss how investor- and consumer-owned utilities navigate resilience planning. The session aims to give states and utilities practical  models for working together more effectively - regardless of utility structure - to advance resilience priorities.

As states enter the final years of the Grid Resilience State and Tribal Formula Grant Program, this session focuses on program improvements states can make. In small, facilitated breakout or roundtable groups, participants will surface real implementation challenges and peer-tested solutions to strengthen the implementation of year 4 and 5 of the grid resilience state and tribal formula grant program.

As grid resilience investment scales, so does the need for consistent, credible ways to measure its value. This panel brings together leading voices on resilience metrics and evaluation frameworks. State spotlights will ground the discussion in how these frameworks are actually being applied in practice. Panelists will help attendees cut through a crowded metrics landscape to identify which measures matter most for demonstrating resilience value.

This panel examines the broader economic case for grid resilience investment, moving beyond avoided-outage calculations to the regional development impacts that resilience funding can generate. Panelists will unpack methods for quantifying benefits such as job creation, business continuity, avoided outage costs, and long-term regional economic growth. The session will help states and stakeholders build a stronger, data-backed narrative for resilience investments.

Conducting rigorous cost-benefit analysis for resilience and grid modernization projects remains one of the field's persistent challenges - particularly when it comes to valuing benefits that are hard to quantify and weighing who bears the cost of inaction. In small, facilitated roundtable groups, participants will share best practices for approaches to resilience valuation, and strategies for grappling with the "resilience burden" - the costs communities and utilities face when resilience investments are delayed or deferred.

Data centers and other large electricity loads are reshaping the resource planning landscape - and, with the right approach, can become a catalyst for resilience investment. This session explores how states are working with large-load customers to fund and accelerate resilient infrastructure upgrades, from transmission and distribution improvements to on-site generation and storage. Discussion will cover the resilience benefits large loads can bring to the broader grid, emerging state strategies for structuring these arrangements, and how to align large-load growth with long-term reliability and resilience goals.

This fast-paced lightning round puts a spotlight on the resilience technologies shaping the grid's next decade. In a series of short, rapid-fire presentations, presenters will introduce emerging resilience technologies on the horizon - from resilient grid communications systems to novel hardware and software solutions. Designed to maximize breadth over depth, the session gives attendees a quick, high-energy tour of what's next in resilience technology and who to talk to for more.

State Energy Offices, Public Utility Commissions, utilities, and emergency management agencies each maintain their own planning frameworks for resilience - State Energy Security Plans (SESP), Hazard Mitigation Plans, Utility Resilience Plans, and others - but these efforts often develop in parallel rather than in coordination. This session examines how these plans can be better connected and explores how states can leverage shared data to strengthen resilience planning across the board. Panelists will offer practical approaches for aligning these frameworks so that planning efforts reinforce rather than duplicate one another.

This session tackles the financing question head-on: how can states, utilities, and private partners fund grid resilience investment as traditional federal dollars taper off? In small roundtable discussions, participants will cover approaches to combining state and federal funding, unlocking non-traditional capital sources, and structuring public-private partnerships that share cost and risk fairly across ratepayers, taxpayers, and investors. Participants will examine who is paying for resilience today, and who should be paying for it over the next decade.

As the Summit draws to a close, NASEO and NARUC leadership will highlight the priorities, open questions, and opportunities for continued collaboration that emerged across the Summit, setting the stage for how states, utilities, and private-sector partners can carry this momentum into the next phase of resilience investment.