GridSmart grids better able to withstand climate change challenges
At the end of October 2012, Hurricane Sandy swept across the northeastern United States at speeds of more than 90 mph. Millions of people were left in the dark. In an era of climate change, energy management systems will have to become increasingly robust in order to withstand natural disasters like Sandy – and also floods, wildfires, heat waves, and droughts. The U.S. power supply — with more than 9,200 power plants and nearly half a million kilometers of overhead lines, about a third of a million miles – is already feeling the strain today. Smart Grid technologies have helped to make power grids more resilient to climate change challenges.
When Hurricane Sandy stormed toward the Atlantic coast three years ago, it threatened to leave a swath of devastation behind in New York City, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania — a massive challenge for the country’s largest power grid operator, PJM Interconnection, which manages the power supply for more than sixty-one million customers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and ten other U.S. states. PJM Interconnection transmits power from more than 1,300 power plants to regional grid operators. If its supply backbone fails, electric customers will be left in the dark.
As feared, the storm caused immense damage. The lights went out in eight million households — five million of them in PJM Interconnection’s territory alone. The operator counted more than 140 damaged overhead lines and transformer substations. It took weeks to get all connections working again.
Climate change: A major challenge for the grid
Blackouts like those could become more common. Climate change will increase not just the number of storms like Hurricane Sandy in the United States, but floods, wildfires, heat waves, and droughts. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reinforced that expectation most recently in an October 2015 report. The country’s power supply — with more than 9,200 power plants and nearly half a million kilometers of overhead lines, about a third of a million miles – is already feeling the strain today.
Power plants in the dry U.S. Southwest must often cut back generation because there is not enough cooling water. Since 2011, California has been going through the worst drought since meteorological measurements began. In fact, according to the latest studies, which evaluated annual growth rings in old trees, it is the worst drought in 1,200 years. At the same time, the El Niño phenomenon in the central Pacific is likely to cause extreme precipitation in the Golden State during the winter of 2015-16, and though water is desperately needed, the rain is likely to hinder as much as it helps — just in mid-October, heavy rains caused mudslides that left more than 10,000 households without electricity.
