Global warming intensifies need for grid modernization

By David Kramer

It has been 10 years since the worst power outage in US history, which affected an estimated 45 million people in the Northeastern and Midwestern US, as well as 10 million in Ontario, Canada. Now, US federal agencies are warning that the increasing frequency of severe weather events due to climate change makes upgrading the nation’s electricity grid more critical than ever.

In a report released on 12 August, the White House and the Department of Energy said that weather-related outages have cost the nation an average of $18 billion to $33 billion annually from 2003 through 2012. Weather-related power failures have increased sharply since 1992, in concert with a rise in the number of severe weather events, including hurricanes, blizzards, and thunderstorms. Since 2002, severe weather has caused nearly 90% of all outages that affected 55 000 or more customers, according to DOE figures.

Upgrading the nation’s electricity grid could cost between $500 billion and $1 trillion, according to a senior government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Having spent $4.5 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds from 2011 to 2013 for improvements to the grid, the federal government has requested just $350 million in fiscal year 2014 for grid-related programs. The ARRA monies funded installation of hundreds of advanced grid sensors that help utilities limit the extent of power outages in bad weather. The ARRA funds also were used to upgrade thousands of distribution circuits with digital technology, install millions of smart meters, and support more than a dozen energy storage projects.

According to the unnamed official, the federal role in grid modernization since ARRA is twofold: conducting R&D and providing information to stakeholders. In addition, the 2014 budget includes $200 million in one-time funding for ‘race to the top’ performance-based awards to support state governments that implement effective policies to cut energy waste and modernize the grid. About $150 million is requested for smart grid R&D at DOE.

Around 70% of the US grid’s transmission lines and power transformers are now more than 25 years old, the report says. Older transmission lines dissipate more energy than newer ones, which constrains supply during periods of high energy demand. The report calls for increased investment in the electric grid and identifies strategies for modernization that include conducting exercises to identify and mitigate the potential impacts of hazards to the grid, working with utilities to harden their infrastructure against wind and flood damage, increasing overall system flexibility and robustness, and supporting implementation of new technologies that can quickly alert utilities to a consumer power outage or other system disruption and automatically reroute the power to avoid further outages.