The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center launched the Clean Energy and Resiliency (CLEAR) Program to support community efforts to use renewable energy for resiliency during electric grid outages. As a first step, such projects typically require a consultant-led feasibility study to analyze the costs and system design needed to undertake such a project. As part of the CLEAR program, MassCEC developed a Resiliency Toolkit that municipal leaders and facility managers can use to reduce upfront cost burden by conducting their own preliminary analysis before hiring a consultant.
The toolkit provides communities with a step-by-step guide to select their critical loads and perform high-level resource screening independently, identifying what data are relevant for determining resiliency needs. The toolkit also includes instructions for finding necessary data from utility websites or billing platforms, as well as preliminary pricing information on right-sized resources to support critical loads through outages of different durations.
The Resiliency Toolkit is free to use and is available on the CLEAR website, alongside an example toolkit and a presentation outlining how to use the toolkit. The intended audience for the toolkit includes city, town, or community planners, sustainability coordinators, energy managers for schools, hospitals, water and wastewater facilities, and any other party interested in evaluating resilient power systems at a building, site, or community level.