Energy Transition and Resilience Strategy

Robertson Energy Advisors is an independent Portland-based business and policy, energy and climate practice founded in 1990. The work spans five decades, now focused on Oregon's data center and electric utility relationships — grid reliability, battery energy storage systems, and energy policy.

The through-line is a single question: how do we design energy systems so they're climate friendly, affordable, and resilient?

Early work included community energy education and large-scale electric utility energy efficiency programs in New England. That work led to technology and market consulting for a startup innovating data center power supply ahead of the dotcom bust — an early encounter with the data center and grid intersection that defines much of the current work.

Later came a first call that solar was the cheapest new energy option in Oregon, a deep dive into solar industry polysilicon supply, and now technical and policy input to the Governor's Data Center Advisory Committee on battery storage for AI infrastructure.

Same question, five decades running: what does a climate-friendly, affordable, resilient energy system look like?

In Oregon, AI infrastructure growth and electric grid capacity are hot-button issues. Hillsboro is seeing data centers arrive faster than the grid can accommodate them. The questions of how they interconnect, how they can become grid flexibility resources, how they affect grid reliability, and what role battery storage can play are being played out right now.

This work sits at the intersection of emerging NERC/FERC regulation of data centers as bulk power system participants, Oregon's new data center rate framework for Portland General Electric (OPUC UM 2377, POWER Act / HB 3546), and the comparative merits of lithium-ion versus long-duration zinc-bromine battery storage for AI infrastructure loads.

Recent work includes technical briefings for the Oregon Data Center Advisory Committee and analysis of Schedule 96 Demand Minimization and GridCARE queue advancement for battery energy storage interconnections.

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"Resilience arises from intentional actions aimed at lessening the impacts of disaster." — Kathleen Tierney, The Social Roots of Risk, 2014

The Cascadia Subduction Zone fault off the Pacific Northwest coast produces magnitude 9 earthquakes on average every 300 years. The last one was 323 years ago. The next will be the worst natural disaster in US history — affecting 20 million people across Northern California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. All lifeline services will be heavily damaged. Electricity and communications will be unavailable for weeks to months.

A new era of cheap solar, fireproof zinc-bromine batteries, and satellite-based internet connectivity has made community resilience energy and communications infrastructure economically and technically viable today in ways it wasn't two years ago.

Neighborhood Resilience Centers

We envision Neighborhood Resilience Centers (NRCs) as small solar power plants with safe batteries, a satellite-based WiFi hotspot, and kiosks where devices can be recharged. NRCs are designed to survive a major earthquake and provide energy and communications services for the surrounding neighborhood.

NRCs make green energy and supply battery services to the grid during normal times. During power outages they disconnect from the grid to provide life-saving services 24/7 until the grid is restored.

This is a complex re-imagining of how distributed energy resources could be deployed as a resilience resource across the Pacific Northwest — involving communities, state and local governments, the region's utilities, and the business and non-profit sectors.

Contact us to discuss resilience planning