Ben Franklin said, “by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”. Perhaps more fitting in the context of climate change is a quote from the late Archbishop of Boston, Richard Cushing, who said, “always plan ahead; it wasn’t raining when Noah built the Ark.” If we’re applying that to the nation’s power system in preparing for the impacts of climate change, you might say it’s starting to rain, and we haven’t even been to the hardware store.
Climate change presents several growing risks to the electric system, from changes in the day-to-day to the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events. These impacts are felt both locally at the utility level and across the broader bulk power system – the network of power plants and large transmission lines that carry power over long distances to serve communities.
I’ve been engaged in the planning and investment decision-making of our bulk transmission system for over a decade. Those processes prompt us to consider what the future may hold and to make investment decisions that will, as best we can, ensure the lights stay on as the world around us changes.
Unfortunately, in many of these planning discussions, the words “climate change” are seldom uttered and the risks posed by the changing climate go largely unaddressed.
We need to change that. In a new report released today entitled Keeping Everyone’s Lights On: How to Build an Equitable, Climate-Resilient Power Grid, my colleagues and I dive into the risks posed by climate change and extreme weather, and offer a slate of recommendations that can help grid operators, utilities, state decisionmakers and other interested parties have more informed and constructive discussions about how to plan for and invest in an equitable and resilient transmission system that can meet the challenges posed by a changing climate.
Climate change requires us to think beyond the normal day-to-day
Climate change is driving more frequent and severe extreme weather events. From extreme heat to winter storms, hurricanes to wildfires, the power grid and the communities it serves are facing threats that we can no longer set aside as anomalies that we can’t predict or prepare for. They now occur with a frequency that requires us to incorporate their potential impacts into our decision-making about how we invest in the grid to meet future needs.
This goes beyond typical “reliability” planning that is focused on the day-to-day conditions and into “resilience” planning that prepares the system for high-impact events that cause long-duration and widespread power outages that can be devastating for communities, particularly low-income and underserved communities.
The bulk transmission system is a critical piece of the puzzle in building a more resilient power system. These transmission lines provide access to a more diverse set of resources and add redundancy to the system. Each can be critical during extreme weather events and provide an important complement to local efforts.
Reliability vs. Resilience in the Power System
| Reliability | Resilience | |
|---|---|---|
| The ability to meet the electricity needs of end-use customers during typical day-to-day conditions and routine uncertainty | Definition | The ability to anticipate, prepare for, withstand, and recover from high-impact, low-frequency events and disruptions |
| Uncertainty associated with fluctuating load and generation, fuel availability, and failure of assets under typical operating conditions | Event Characteristics | High-impact, low-frequency events that represent extreme operating conditions and apply significant stress to a system over a large scale |
| Seconds to hours | Outage Duration | Days to months |
| Localized over a relatively small geographic area (e.g., a facility, campus, or neighborhood) | Spatial Extent | Covering a large geographic region (e.g., states, regions, or islands) |
| Losses largely limited to those resulting directly from unserved load | Economic Losses | Losses arising from both lost load and cascading impacts on the economy and public health |
Reliability and resilience represent two different challenges that require different approaches for transmission system planners and operators to address in a cost-effective manner. Source: Adapted from Hotchkiss, Grue, and Petty 2023
Resilient systems must, first and foremost, serve communities
While transmission system planners must think regionally and inter-regionally about the investments needed to build a more climate-resilient power system, investment decisions must start with a focus on communities. Simply put: communities vary in their vulnerability to the widespread and extended power outages that occur when the bulk transmission system fails in extreme weather.
Low-income communities and those that are burdened by a history of under-investment or discriminatory policies can experience particularly devastating consequences when the lights go out for even a short time, let alone the days or weeks that some communities have experienced in recent years when extreme weather hit. Equitable solutions to build resilience must account for these disparities between communities and make sure all communities, particularly the most vulnerable, are protected.
That’s why I’ve always been frustrated by the idea that one number or a single metric can represent the impacts of a power outage uniformly across a large geographic region. Too often I’ve heard system operators or utilities respond to inquiries about performance during extreme events with a simple “overall, the system performed well” without an acknowledgement that, in reality, the system performed better for some than others. We can and must do better, and it starts with engaging communities and making sure they have not only a voice, but influence.
Let’s not prepare to fail
Unfortunately, climate change is here and it’s forcing us to rethink how we invest in infrastructure, including the power grid, and how we protect communities from extreme weather events. But if we do it right – acknowledging and facing the risks posed by climate change in an inclusive, equitable way – it’s also an opportunity to do things better and to address some of the inequities and injustices currently embedded in our power systems. An equitable, climate-resilient power system is achievable. Hopefully this new report from UCS can help get us started down that path.