Electric Power System Resilience
Tom Jones, PE
Renewable Energy Expert | Professional Engineer | Driving Sustainability in the Energy Industry
From the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), during 2020, there were 22 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disaster events across the United States, breaking the previous annual record of 16 events that occurred in 2017 and 2011. The 2020 costs were $95.0 billion, with Hurricane Laura, the August derecho and the historic Western wildfires as the costliest events. The billion-dollar disaster events during 2020 caused the fourth-highest annual U.S. cost total since 1980. This increase reflects a combination of increased exposure, vulnerability and the fact the climate change is playing an increasing role in the increasing frequency in some types of extremes that lead to billion-dollar disasters.
Traditional planning focuses on reliability that prevents more common, local, and smaller in scale disruptions. Perhaps, resiliency which is concerned with the ability to recover from adversity and focuses on power interruption from “high-impact” events which can be geographically and temporally widespread should be adopted, given recent and extreme weather events. A more resilient power system is needed now.
The Electric Power Research Institute suggests that electric power system resiliency is based on three elements: damage prevention; system recovery and survivability (Institute, 2016). Damage prevention or hardening is the application of engineering designs and advanced technologies that limit damage to the power system. System recovery is the use of tools and techniques to restore service as soon as feasible. Survivability is the use of innovative technologies to allow some level of normal function without complete access to their normal power sources, such as microgrids.
Commonwealth Associates stands ready to assist you in the planning and design of resilient facilities.
References
Institute, E. P. (2016, February 8). Electric Power System Resiliency: Challenges and Opportunities. Retrieved from epri.com: https://www.epri.com/research/products/000000003002007376
NOAA. (n.d.). Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Overview. Retrieved from noaa.gov: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-content/billions/images/2020-billion-dollar-disaster-map.png
Consulting Engineer
4yTom is perhaps being too modest with respect to the ways Commonwealth can assist. One of the major causes of generation failure in Texas is a lack of heat tracing on the gas lines feeding gas fired electric generation in Texas and elsewhere. Commonwealth can help with economical solutions. Prices are soaring to levels over a thousand times normal. Commonwealth can help with market design questions. Wind farms are not equipped with cold weather packages, Commonwealth can help insure these are included in project design specifications. The grid is what we do and appropriate planning for rare events is a part of the mission.