Weather-Safe Energy Act of 2025
The Weather-Safe Energy Act of 2025 would create a federal effort to improve how electricity systems plan for and respond to extreme weather. It requires the Department of Energy (DOE) to develop an open-access Weather-Safe Energy Platform—a high-resolution digital tool containing meteorological and hydrological data and projections tailored for electricity planning and operational modeling. The platform would emphasize data that preserves spatial and temporal relationships to reflect how extreme weather could cause cascading grid failures. The bill also establishes ongoing research into extreme weather scenarios, funds grants and contracts to research centers and universities, and ensures integration of research findings into the platform. In addition, DOE would provide technical assistance and training to utilities, regulators, and other stakeholders, with regular congressional reporting on progress, funding, and platform usage. Overall, the bill aims to strengthen grid resilience by making advanced weather data and modeling capabilities openly available to energy planners and regulators.
Key Points
- 1Weather-Safe Energy Platform: creation of an open-access digital tool that provides high-resolution meteorological and hydrological data for electricity system planning and operation, with attributes such as spatiotemporal correlation, ensemble scenarios, historical data, and short-/medium-/long-term projections; eligible to include data from state-of-the-science models and ongoing research.
- 2Data quality and governance: the platform must maintain spatiotemporal consistency, include standardized metadata (use cases, uncertainty analysis, extreme-event study), and be regularly updated to reflect advances in science and stakeholder needs; it should incorporate stakeholder input (utilities, municipalities, regulators, researchers, etc.).
- 3Extreme weather research funding: the Secretary would fund competitive grants/contracts with federal research centers, universities, and other eligible institutions to advance understanding and modeling of extreme weather impacts on energy systems; findings would be integrated into the Platform.
- 4Technical assistance and training: DOE would offer workshops, training, and materials to help stakeholders use the Platform and integrate scenario data into planning and operations; foster collaboration and knowledge exchange.
- 5Reporting and implementation: periodic Congress reports (initially within 5 years and then every at least every 3 years) detailing funding use, platform deployment, research progress, and Platform utilization; implementation responsibilities split between the Office of Electricity (for core platform activities) and DOE-funded research centers (for data tools and training).