Excerpt: Adapting Today, Energizing a More Resilient Tomorrow
VX News shares the Executive Summary of Adapting Today: Energizing a More Resilient Tomorrow, a September 2026 report from Southern California Edison. The paper accompanies SCE's 2026 Climate Adaptation Vulnerability Assessment (CAVA), which updates the utility's 2022 assessment. SCE presents the paper as both a road map for affordable, climate-informed infrastructure planning and a call for shared action among government, business, investors and communities. The full white paper can be accessed here.
Adapting Today: Energizing a More Resilient Tomorrow builds on SCE’s 2026 Climate Adaptation Vulnerability Assessment and outlines how updated climate projections, improved analytics and targeted planning can help strengthen grid reliability, affordability and community resilience.
The report highlights the need for continued collaboration among utilities, government, researchers, businesses and communities to prepare for changing climate conditions while supporting California’s clean energy transition.
Executive Summary
Climate change is already reshaping the conditions in which communities live, businesses operate and critical infrastructure is planned, maintained and operated. Over the last decade, climate-related disasters have resulted in more than $2 trillion in global economic losses, underscoring the need to strengthen infrastructure and response systems designed for yesterday’s conditions. For California, a robust electric system is foundational to community preparedness, since electricity supports many essential services that keep people safe, connected and able to recover.
SCE’s 2026 Climate Adaptation Vulnerability Assessment builds on prior work by using updated climate projections and improved analytical methods to provide more actionable insights into where climate hazards may affect specific assets, operations, services and communities. Improved data and analytical methods provide greater confidence in where and how vulnerabilities may emerge, including increased electrical load and heat stress on substation transformers, projected flood risks to direct-bury poles and sea level rise vulnerabilities on
Catalina Island. These insights help SCE target adaptive investments and build infrastructure right the first time, reducing costly retrofits and avoiding premature replacements to support a more reliable and affordable electric system as California continues to electrify. For
example, accounting for climate-driven temperature increases upfront could help avoid a projected 63% increase in the number of substation control buildings with protection relays that are vulnerable by 2050.
However, SCE cannot do this work alone. Utilities are critical partners, but building resilient communities requires collaboration, shared investment and
widespread action across the whole economy, including government, emergency management, businesses,private investors, community organizations, residents and the research community. This paper is both a road map for resilience — outlining how climate-informed planning can strengthen reliability affordably — and a call to action.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The climate change signal is clear: Intensifying hazards are increasing risks to communities, the electric grid and public safety
SCE is strengthening its infrastructure for changing conditions through climate-informed planning.
Building climate resilience is a shared responsibility that requires coordinated action among utilities, governments, businesses and communities
