From Coordination to Collaboration: Energy Meteorology and the Public-Private Value Chain

Much has been made of the coordination of public-private roles and responsibilities across the nation's weather enterprise. Current policies, such as those implemented by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service (NWS), have evolved over the last decade with the specific objective of building trust and enhancing coordination. Many of the related discussions have focused on the government's foundational mission to ensure that weather, water, ocean, and climate warnings and other data and information are available whenever and wherever needed.

As energy meteorology emerges as a national priority with major economic and security implications, it offers an excellent opportunity to align the public and private components of the weather enterprise in a deliberate and thoughtful way from the start. With the need to support weather- and water-dependent energy production (e.g. winds, waves, solar) becoming more urgent, a truly collaborative approach offers the best method to optimize efficiency and effectiveness for society in general and for the public and private sector participants.

Existing NWS policy and implementing frameworks are designed to support coordination, but to truly reach the next level of performance, its efforts (as well as those of the private sector) must be re-focused to support a collaborative public-private value chain. This is consistent with proposed revisions to the NWS Strategic Plan and the Roadmap for Services that reflect the need for NWS to better support impact-based forecasting and integrated decision support services.

This presentation will discuss lessons learned and best practices adapted from other efforts that have focused on collaboration and consideration of the entire value chain. In particular, it relies heavily on the operational construct used by the Naval Meteorological and Oceanography Command (NMOC), entitled Battlespace on Demand (BonD). BonD consciously and deliberately encompasses the entire value chain - from observations of the current environment to forecasts of the future environment to assessment of the impacts of the environment on operations to direct support of operational decision makers. Adoption of an analogous approach in order to optimize support to the energy industry will foster public-private collaboration, build trust, and avoid costly duplication of services.

Note: The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the National Weather Service.