Overview
IEC 63152:2020 - "Smart cities - City service continuity against disasters - The role of the electrical supply" provides concepts, guidelines and methods to sustain city services during disasters from the perspective of electricity. It defines the city service continuity (CSC) concept and specifies how organizations should prepare an electricity continuity plan (ECP) and implement an electricity continuity system (ECS) so that essential public services remain available when grid power is disrupted.
Keywords: IEC 63152, smart cities, city service continuity, electricity continuity, disaster resilience, ECP, ECS.
Key topics and technical requirements
- Concepts and definitions: CSC, ECP, ECS and related terminology tied to business continuity planning.
- ECP requirements and guidelines: planning steps and specific items to consider when documenting electricity continuity as part of a broader business continuity plan.
- ECS requirements: functional requirements for systems that implement the ECP, including reliability and operational considerations for maintaining power during outages.
- Evaluation methods: guidance to assess required electricity capacity and build a basic model for ECP/ECS design (annexes include calculation approaches and models).
- CSC types and cooperation models: classifications such as self-backup, information cooperation and power cooperation to tailor continuity strategies to different urban contexts.
- Planning and management tools: timetables, status information and disaster-related information to support coordinated response and recovery (informative annexes provide templates and examples).
Note: IEC 63152 focuses on concepts and guidelines rather than prescriptive electrical design values.
Practical applications
- Designing and specifying resilient power strategies for smart cities, municipalities and special districts.
- Developing coordinated emergency power policies across utilities, hospitals, transport, communications and water/wastewater providers.
- Creating procurement and testing requirements for backup generators, microgrids, energy storage and control systems that support ECP/ECS objectives.
- Integrating electricity continuity into city-wide business continuity management and disaster response plans.
- Informing interoperability and information-sharing workflows for multi‑stakeholder disaster response.
Who should use this standard
- City developers and urban planners who need to embed electricity continuity into urban development.
- City and utility operators planning resilient grids, microgrids and distributed energy resources.
- Equipment manufacturers specifying features for backup power, control and status-reporting.
- Essential service providers (healthcare, transport, water, communications) that must maintain critical functions during outages.
- Disaster management personnel and business continuity professionals coordinating multi-agency responses.
Related standards
- ISO 22301 (Societal security - Business continuity management systems) is cited as a normative reference and complements IEC 63152 for organizational continuity processes.
IEC 63152 is a practical guide for integrating electricity resilience into smart-city planning, enabling coordinated, electricity-focused strategies that reduce service disruption during disasters.
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