Balancing Reliability and Resilience: How Utilities Are Preparing for Climate-Related Hazards

August 26, 2026
Grand Horizons Ballroom DEFG
Storms & Wildfires

As climate-related hazards including storms, hurricanes, and wildfires grow in frequency and intensity, electric utilities face an increasingly difficult investment challenge: how to balance traditional reliability investments with the broader, longer-horizon demands of resilience. This panel brings together executives and operational leaders from leading utilities to explore how their organizations are making strategic infrastructure decisions under conditions of deepening uncertainty. Panelists will discuss how they are prioritizing hardening investments, leveraging grid modernization technologies, and engaging regulators and communities, while also focusing on day-to-day system performance. The session will examine real-world trade-offs, practices, and the evolving frameworks utilities are using to define, measure, and operationalize resilience in an era of accelerating climate-related hazards.

Moderator
Dr. Aleksi Paaso
Dr. Aleksi Paaso, Partner - DASH Power Partners
Speakers
Jaime Ortega
Jaime Ortega, Director of Grid Analytics - ComEd
Dr. Shay Bahramirad
Dr. Shay Bahramirad, Vice President, Electric Transmission and Distribution Engineering - Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E)
Dr. Daniel Haughton
Dr. Daniel Haughton - FP&L