DisastersSmall, local energy technologies to help sustain vital services during blackouts
Researchers suggest that rethinking the solution to sustaining electric power — namely, starting small — could keep critical services going, even when the high-voltage grid is crippled; the U.S. military is already taking steps to protect its power supplies in the event of a massive grid failure by adopting small, local energy technologies, and California governor Jerry Brown recently announced that he wants 12,000 megawatts of such power supplies in his state
Keeping the lights on can be a challenge during extreme weather and other disasters like those affecting the East Coast of the United States this summer, but real options may be available to avoid some of the power-related crises that follow upon such events.
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University suggest that rethinking the solution to sustaining electric power — namely, starting small — could keep critical services going, even when the high-voltage grid is crippled.
A Society for Risk Analysis release reports that it is worth noting that the U.S. military is already taking steps to protect its power supplies in the event of a massive grid failure by adopting small, local energy technologies, and California governor Jerry Brown recently announced that he wants 12,000 megawatts of such power supplies in his state.
This natural disaster demonstrated that, despite ongoing efforts to improve electric power transmission reliability, the risk of prolonged regional blackouts remains a significant concern.
To combat future widespread and extended power outages, Carnegie Mellon University researchers have devised a strategy to use local distributed electricity generation, distribution automation, and smart meters to form small electricity “islands” that would support critical social services in the event of a substantial disruption resulting from extreme weather, terrorism, or other causes.
Distributed generation (DG) collects and distributes electricity from many small energy sources rather than relying on large centralized power facilities. Carnegie Mellon University researchers Anu Narayanan and M. Granger Morgan examined the incremental cost of adding DG units and smart meters to a hypothetical community of 5,000 households covering an area of 5 km2. The research was conducted with funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and Carnegie Mellon University. The study, titled “Sustaining Critical Social Services During Extended Regional Power Blackouts,” appears in the July 2012 issue of Risk Analysis, published by the Society for Risk Analysis.
Under normal operation, large centralized utility generators send electricity along a high-voltage transmission system to a low-voltage distribution system that ultimately delivers power to homes, schools, police stations and other local consumers. An extreme disturbance such as a hurricane can disrupt the high-voltage transmission system and eliminate power to entire regions. Under the Narayanan and Morgan strategy, electricity circuits would be manually or automatically rerouted to form isolated energy islands powered by local DG units. To achieve a “smart grid” DG system, utility companies would need to install
