How battery programs are changing grid reliability.

When people think about grid resilience, they often think about the next major storm, wildfire, or other extreme event. But for some communities, the reliability challenge is much more persistent.

Aging infrastructure, vulnerable circuits, remote locations, and end-of-line customers can contribute to recurring outages even when the weather is clear. And while the long-term answer may be a new substation, a hardened circuit, underground infrastructure, or another major grid investment, those projects can take years to plan, fund, and complete.

Customers still need reliable power in the meantime.

That is creating a new opportunity for residential battery programs: using distributed storage not simply as individual backup, but as a strategic layer of resilience across reliability-challenged communities.

From backup power to community resilience.

Residential batteries have traditionally been viewed as a way to keep the lights on when the grid goes down. That remains one of their most immediate benefits. But the role of distributed storage is expanding. Instead of thinking about 1,000 batteries as 1,000 separate installations, utilities can think about them as 1,000 resilience assets distributed throughout a community.

When batteries are strategically deployed across outage-prone circuits, they can provide customers with backup power while utilities work toward longer-term infrastructure solutions. The result is not a replacement for grid modernization. It is another layer of resilience that can help address reliability challenges today while larger investments take shape.

This distinction matters. A battery program designed around community resilience starts with a different question than a traditional backup program. Rather than asking, “Who wants a battery?” utilities can ask, “Where can distributed storage provide the greatest reliability value?” The shift opens the door to a more targeted approach.

Bridging the infrastructure gap.

Grid modernization is essential to improving long-term reliability. But infrastructure projects can be complex, costly, and time-consuming, particularly when they involve substations, distribution circuits, or other capital improvements. This creates a timing gap between the reliability problems customers experience and the infrastructure improvements intended to solve them.

Strategically deployed residential storage may help bridge this gap.

For example, a utility may identify a circuit where customers experience frequent outages because of aging equipment or other infrastructure constraints. Replacing or upgrading the equipment may ultimately be the right solution, but it may not happen immediately. A battery installed at a customer's home can provide a more immediate resilience resource. When deployed across a cluster of customers on a reliability-challenged circuit, batteries can provide a distributed layer of customer resilience, helping participating households maintain power during outages while the utility advances longer-term infrastructure solutions.

Resource Innovations is supporting PG&E's Residential Battery Initiative (RBI), launched in September 2025, which deploys residential batteries to eligible customers in areas experiencing recurring reliability challenges. The program provides participating customers with backup power while PG&E continues to address longer-term infrastructure and reliability needs. The experience from RBI demonstrates how targeted battery deployment can complement longer-term grid investments and offers a practical example of how distributed resources can support community resilience.

Put batteries where they can do the most.

Community resilience does not mean deploying batteries everywhere. The value of a distributed battery program depends on where the resources are placed and what problem they intend to solve. Utilities can start by looking at the reliability data already available to them: How frequently does a circuit experience outages? How long do outages last? Which customers and communities are affected? Are there geographic or infrastructure characteristics that make certain areas particularly difficult to serve?

These questions can help utilities identify where distributed storage may have the greatest potential impact. Utilities can also consider whether battery capacity and expected customer loads align with the frequency and duration of outages in the targeted area. The strongest resilience strategies bring grid and customer planning together. They use reliability data to understand where the grid is most vulnerable and customer and community insights to understand where outages have the greatest consequences.

Economic consequences can add another dimension to that analysis. The cost of an outage is not the same for every customer, community, or business. Tools such as the U.S. Department of Energy's Interruption Cost Estimate Calculator can help utilities estimate the economic consequences associated with interruptions and incorporate the impacts into resilience planning.

Together, reliability data, customer characteristics, geography, and economic impact can provide a more complete picture of where storage may create meaningful value. The goal is not simply to maximize the number of batteries installed. It is to maximize the resilience value these batteries can provide.

The economics require a broader view.

Residential battery programs are not automatically a lower-cost alternative to grid infrastructure. Installation, equipment, labor, and program administration all carry costs, and those costs need to be evaluated against the specific reliability challenge being addressed.

The more useful question is whether distributed storage can create sufficient value in a particular location and time frame to justify the investment.

This means considering more than the cost of a battery installation. Utilities can weigh the frequency and duration of outages, the consequences the outages create for customers and communities, the timing and cost of planned infrastructure improvements, and the potential value of improving reliability while the projects move forward. In some cases, the answer may still be a traditional infrastructure investment. In others, distributed storage may offer a complementary solution that addresses an immediate need while allowing utilities to sequence larger investments over time. The right approach will depend on the circumstances of each community and the economics of each program.

Implementation is part of the resilience strategy.

Identifying the right communities is only the beginning. Turning a distributed resilience strategy into thousands of functioning battery systems requires an end-to-end implementation model.

An effective implementation model includes these stages:

• Target and engage: Identify eligible customers, conduct targeted outreach and education, manage qualification and enrollment, and reduce barriers that may prevent eligible customers from participating.
• Assess and design: Complete site assessments, feasibility reviews, electrical design, and permitting.
• Install and activate: Coordinate installation, interconnection, inspection, and permission to operate.
• Support and manage: Provide ongoing customer support, contractor management, quality assurance, data management, and utility reporting.

Each step matters. A battery does not provide resilience simply because it has been purchased or delivered. It becomes a resilience asset when it is properly sited, installed, interconnected, commissioned, and supported throughout its lifecycle.

Resource Innovations brings experience across this full implementation journey. Its teams have supported residential battery programs across California, with nearly 5,500 batteries installed statewide to date. The experience spans customer outreach and qualification through site assessment, electrical design, permitting, installation, interconnection, inspection, customer education, contractor management, QA/QC, and utility reporting.

This end-to-end perspective becomes particularly important when the objective shifts from installing individual batteries to deploying distributed resilience at community scale.

A new layer of resilience.

The grid of the future will require more than a single solution. Utilities will continue investing in infrastructure improvements while also exploring how distributed energy resources can support customers and the grid.

Residential batteries can play a significant role in the broader strategy.

The opportunity is to stop viewing each battery as an isolated backup device and start seeing strategically deployed storage as a distributed resilience resource. Together, these systems can provide backup power at the household level while creating a broader layer of customer resilience across the community.

For utility leaders, the question is not whether batteries should replace grid modernization. The more useful questions are: Where are reliability problems most persistent? Which infrastructure solutions will take the most time to implement? Where do recurring outages carry the greatest consequences for customers and communities? And can strategically deployed distributed resources help address these needs?

Grid modernization takes time, but customers need reliable power now. Residential batteries can become more than individual backup systems. They can form a distributed layer of resilience that helps utilities address today's reliability needs while building toward tomorrow's grid.

About Resource Innovations

Resource Innovations is an energy transformation firm focused on powering the clean energy future. Working with utilities, governments, and businesses across North America, we develop and deliver market-leading energy efficiency, electrification, distributed energy resource, and grid modernization solutions to reduce emissions, improve affordability, and make clean energy accessible for all.