Research Publications

As climate change drives more frequent extreme weather events, ensuring building habitability during power outages—known as passive survivability—has become a key resilience strategy. Passive building technologies, such as envelope and window upgrades, not only help maintain safe indoor conditions during outages but also reduce and shift electricity demand—benefits that are increasingly relevant as rising temperatures exacerbate peak demand. Yet, their grid-level cost savings and climate adaptation value remain unquantified. This study addresses that gap by modeling how investments in building envelope and windows upgrades affect the passive survivability of residential buildings during concurrent heatwaves and power outages, as well as bulk power system investments, operations, and costs. We use a multi-model framework linking building energy simulations with long-term capacity expansion modeling under a No Climate Change and midcentury RCP 4.5 scenario. We find that widespread adoption of upgrades can reduce peak demand below No Climate Change levels, improve generation efficiency, and lower system costs by as much as $2.8 billion/year (4%)—while improving thermal safety during extreme heat events. Accounting for these grid benefits reduces the effective cost of upgrades by over 50%, offering a new pathway to fund building resilience through measurable power system benefits.