Introduction
A recent 60 Minutes segment regarding power grid resilience and a Wall Street Journal article about the problems facing the power grid this summer with a compelling case for improving power grid supply reliability left us feeling dismayed. Each piece talked about making the grid more secure. While that is important, as career power engineers that are passionate about energy management systems, we know that our focus should be on making users of the grid more self-reliant.
For instance, recent innovations in small-scale renewable generation and battery technology make the use of distributed energy storage a viable option. In addition, a modular grid can deliver priority energy during interruptions and better resist cyberattacks.
Here are ways to achieve grid self-reliance.
“Survival Mode” Operability
A more resilient power supply requires every customer, from small to large, to install some form of adequate “survival mode” operability for times of crisis. The grid can only be made so reliable.
Every incremental reliability gain is more and more costly, yet less and less effective. A large new powerplant, windfarm or major new transmission line is a large new contingency.
Understand Public Policy Issues
Infrastructure like electric grids is innately politicized. Start with infringement of private rates, such as the right to take land for transmission lines (eminent domain). Public policy gets hijacked by utility and industry lobbyists and by activists with a caring but costly and grid-careless renewable agenda. In addition, ill-conceived policies motivating large scale renewable energy production can hurt the economy, reliability and result in higher emissions from the grid.
Grid-wise, a single, large generator is more prone to single-point failure than distributed generation. In the name of efficiency, the opportunity to attain a truly resilient grid is being squandered by those “in charge” due to a variety of perverse incentives and regulations.
Move Toward Renewable Energy
Renewable energy management continues to be discussed among important economists. For example, reaching 100% renewable energy at all times is an expensive and elusive goal. Economists, such as Vaclal Smit, have forcibly argued this case. Nevertheless, the ability of individuals, businesses and communities to mitigate disastrous power outages remains a key objective that simply cannot be met with current policies.
“True Grid” requires a more dynamic, divisible union of sub-grids, capable of making and delivering electricity. Imagine an energy storage system in which after a regional disaster, most businesses and/or households could preserve some essential services during the crisis, economic damage and threats to life would be greatly diminished. For example:
- Solar or wind production with battery backup that can’t serve an entire load of a business or individual but could serve essential local sub-loads or all loads.
- Larger businesses and institutions may still rely on fossil fuel generators under today’s conditions, but that can change over time through technological advances.
- Transportation of people and goods that can operate in crisis mode to deliver goods and services to communities. Reliance on fuel supplies can be supplemented with partial reliance on electric transportation.
In Conclusion
At the heart of today’s policies is the reliance of policymakers on the advice of legacy utility interests. Utilities may once have been “natural monopolies” but no more. The monopoly on the sale or resale of electricity still extant in many jurisdictions must go.
Meanwhile, like-minded individuals should be free to form small communities, sharing energy resources. Yes, the grid, like the highway system, will probably have to remain a “common good” for the benefit of all (as is now the case at the large-scale wholesale level). But at the retail level, the game is little changed. Yet, change it must. Make cascading total blackouts caused by grid failure a thing of the past.
