On the last day of May, a diverse group of collaborators gathered at Tennessee State University (TSU) campus in Nashville for a powerful community demonstration: a virtual simulation of the 2020 tornado that tore through the city. The goal? To test how microgrids, localized energy systems powered by renewables like solar, can keep essential services running when disaster strikes. The simulation also highlighted the critical role communities play in providing essential information to utilities during extreme weather events.
This event was part of the ARCHER project, a project led by EPRI in partnership with TSU, TVA, NES, and the City of Nashville. This Accelerating Resilience of the Community through Holistic Engagement and use of Renewables Planning Framework (ARCHER) project calls for an all-in approach to energy resilience guided by community needs and direction. ARCHER isn’t just about deploying new technology; it’s about building a smarter, more connected approach to energy resilience that puts communities at the center of the solution.
What makes ARCHER stand out is its deep dive into the unique needs of each neighborhood. ARCHER brought community members together, forming a Community Resilience Advisory Board that helped the project team understand the community’s unique needs and essential services. Looking at everything from energy access and social vulnerability to emergency preparedness and infrastructure gaps and using advanced modeling, interactive dashboards, and a new resilience metric, the project helps cities figure out where to place distributed energy resources (DER), like solar panels and battery storage, for the biggest impact.
This novel resilience approach evaluates DER portfolio options by balancing technical performance with socioeconomic trade-offs, enabling utilities and municipalities to make informed investment decisions. ARCHER blends traditional utility data with insights on community needs, demographics, environmental risks, and economic conditions to guide smarter investments.
And while Nashville is the testbed, the tools and strategies developed through ARCHER are designed to be scalable, offering a repeatable blueprint for communities everywhere to strengthen their energy systems and bounce back faster from extreme weather. ARCHER outlines a replicable step-by-step process that utilities can use in collaboration with communities and cities, as demonstrated in Nashville, and is available here.
What makes this project stand out is how it blends high-tech tools with real community input. By using community involvement, interactive dashboards and smart planning, ARCHER gives cities a clear game plan for handling future climate challenges. It’s a model that other communities can follow, showing that when people work together, they can build a more resilient, reliable energy future for everyone.