WORKING TOGETHER TOWARD A MORE RESILIENT FUTURE

The report examines the increasing need for energy resilience in the Upper Roaring Fork Valley, Colorado, following the 2018 Lake Christine Fire. It argues that traditional grid hardening and backup generators are insufficient and proposes a shift toward distributed energy resources (DERs) and community-centric planning. Through a partnership between Holy Cross Energy (HCE) and local stakeholders, the report identifies five priority resilience areas: community microgrids, bulk power supply flexibility, mobile generation fleets, gasoline pump resilience, and critical end-use efficiency. It emphasizes the need for 'blue sky' value—benefits during normal operations—to justify the cost of 'black sky' emergency investments and recommends new business models, such as split ownership and updated tariffs, to facilitate the deployment of clean energy resilience solutions.

• The 2018 Lake Christine Fire highlighted critical vulnerabilities in the Upper Roaring Fork Valley, where the loss of three out of four transmission lines into Aspen nearly caused a prolonged power outage during peak tourist season.
• There is a growing reliance on electricity for critical functions, including cellular communications, which first responders identify as a top priority because outages prevent 911 calls.
• Traditional resilience efforts have focused on grid hardening and on-site diesel or natural gas generators, but these often lack 'blue sky' value, meaning they provide no benefit during normal operations.
• Distributed energy resources (DERs) can provide both 'black sky' backup and 'blue sky' value, such as balancing variable renewables and managing peak demand, which helps justify their higher upfront costs compared to traditional generators.
• The report identifies five specific distributed resilience options for further exploration: community microgrids, mobile generation fleets, gasoline pump resilience, bulk power supply flexibility, and end-use efficiency at critical facilities.
• A survey of gas stations in the Upper Roaring Fork Valley revealed that none of the eleven service stations had backup power in place, creating a risk that fuel pumping would be impossible during an evacuation.
• To overcome financial barriers to DERs, the report suggests 'stacked investment' or split ownership models where the utility pays for grid controls and the customer finances behind-the-meter assets.
• Holy Cross Energy is implementing a new DER services agreement to allow customers to spread the costs of acquisition, installation, and maintenance over monthly utility bills.
• The report recommends exploring the use of electric school buses as mobile backup power sources for schools and refuge centers through vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology.
• Effective resilience planning requires a shift from isolated facility-level actions to a community-wide partnership between the utility and stakeholders.

APA

BREHM, K., DYSON, M., & GOLDFIELD, E. (2020). WORKING TOGETHER TOWARD A MORE RESILIENT FUTURE. RMI. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2020/05/holy-cross-report.pdf

Chicago

BREHM, KEVIN, MARK DYSON, and EMILY GOLDFIELD. WORKING TOGETHER TOWARD A MORE RESILIENT FUTURE. RMI, 2020. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2020/05/holy-cross-report.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=BREHM |first1=KEVIN |last2=DYSON |first2=MARK |last3=GOLDFIELD |first3=EMILY |title=WORKING TOGETHER TOWARD A MORE RESILIENT FUTURE |publisher=RMI |date=May 2020 |url=https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2020/05/holy-cross-report.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{brehm2020working, author = {BREHM, KEVIN and DYSON, MARK and GOLDFIELD, EMILY}, title = {{WORKING TOGETHER TOWARD A MORE RESILIENT FUTURE}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2020}, month = may, url = {https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2020/05/holy-cross-report.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }