Lessons for Grid Resilience from the Upper Roaring Fork Valley

This report details a Rocky Mountain Institute-supported process in Colorado's Upper Roaring Fork Valley involving Holy Cross Energy to improve grid resilience against hazards like fires. It emphasizes the necessity of utility-community partnerships and the integration of distributed clean energy technologies to provide both daily and emergency benefits.

• The process in the Upper Roaring Fork Valley demonstrated that close collaboration between community stakeholders and the local utility can lead to more efficient solutions that benefit all involved parties.
• Investments in emerging technologies, specifically solar and battery storage, can advance regional clean energy goals while benefiting from declining costs to improve resilience.
• The experience in the Upper Roaring Fork Valley yielded three general conclusions for grid resilience: distributed clean energy should be part of planning, such planning requires utility-community partnerships, and innovations in ownership and business models may be needed to ensure investments provide both 'blue sky' (normal operation) and 'black sky' (emergency) benefits.

APA

RMI (2020). Lessons for Grid Resilience from the Upper Roaring Fork Valley. https://rmi.org/resources/working-together-toward-a-more-resilient-future/

Chicago

RMI. Lessons for Grid Resilience from the Upper Roaring Fork Valley. 2020. https://rmi.org/resources/working-together-toward-a-more-resilient-future/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Lessons for Grid Resilience from the Upper Roaring Fork Valley |date=14 May 2020 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/working-together-toward-a-more-resilient-future/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2020lessons, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Lessons for Grid Resilience from the Upper Roaring Fork Valley}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2020}, month = may, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/working-together-toward-a-more-resilient-future/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }