Chartwell to Launch New Utility Resilience Institute and Councils
Chartwell, Inc., a leading provider of insights and best practices to the utility industry, today announced a new research institute and two new councils dedicated to helping utilities improve their resilience against the threats posed by increasingly impactful outage events.
Starting this fall, Chartwell’s Utility Resilience Institute (CURI) will conduct extensive, in-depth research into outage and resilience topics and develop industry post-event benchmarks to support participating utilities.
“Improving resilience is critical as utilities face increased risks from threats that are growing in frequency, complexity, and severity,” said Chartwell Chief Executive Officer I.S. Dunklin. “From mega-wildfires, superstorms, and other climate-related catastrophes to geopolitical conflicts and cyber and physical attacks, these threats require utilities to adapt and improve their organizational resilience strategies to minimize operational disruption and customer dissatisfaction.”
The institute’s groundbreaking work will be complemented by two new collaborative councils that will focus on current challenges to identify and document best practices and solutions.
Launching early next year, the new councils are:
• The Organizational Resilience Executive Council, where industry leaders will discuss shared challenges and best practices in areas such as organizational structure, enterprise risk management, all hazards emergency planning, business continuity and disaster recovery, cyber and physical security, public safety power shutoff, and load shed. Chartwell will hold an executive roundtable on organizational resilience from 3-4 p.m. ET on Wednesday, June 26.
• The Emergency Management Leadership Council, whose participants will focus on such functional areas as risk identification, organizational development, emergency operations planning, situational awareness resources, training programs, internal and external communications, and other topics. Chartwell will hold an emergency management practitioner’s roundtable from 3-4 p.m. ET on Thursday, June 27.
Dunklin announced the new initiatives during the 18th annual PowerUp: Chartwell’s Outage Conference at the Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld. More than 130 industry leaders and experts are attending this year’s sold-out event, which features speakers and panels to support utilities’ efforts to improve outage communications, operations, and emergency management.
The new institute and initiatives continue Chartwell’s legacy of bringing data, insights, and best practices to the utility industry, Dunklin said. Companies that fail to adapt and improve their resilience strategies, he said, can expect increased scrutiny from regulators, legislators, customers, and investors, at a time when the industry faces greater pressures to keep rates affordable, operate more efficiently, achieve clean energy goals, and capitalize on new growth opportunities from electrification and renewables.
Don Daigler, Chartwell’s Resilience Executive Consultant, will serve as an advisor to CURI and the new councils. He noted that each power company grapples with its distinct challenges – unique service territories, residential/business customer base, stakeholders’ expectations, community needs, and political pressures – that require customized solutions.
“Critical to success is tailoring a flexible solution that meets the needs of the organization at a price that values the impact on customers,” he said.
A former electric and public sector executive, Daigler has more than 40 years of leadership experience and a broad background in working with public and private sector organizations on issues relating to homeland security, defense and intelligence, emergency management, critical infrastructure protection, and advising on the advancement of technology to support those functions. He is the current CEO/Founder of Resilience Advisory Services, LLC.
For more information about Chartwell’s Utility Resilience Institute and two new councils, contact Tim Herrick, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, at therrick@staging.chartwellinc.com.
For more information about the June roundtables, Contact Anna Miller, Senior Customer Engagement Specialist, at amiller@staging.chartwellinc.com.
