Koppers Utility & Industrial Products’ Post

New research shows Texas leads the nation in weather-related power outages, a trend likely to worsen as climate change intensifies. With hurricanes, ice storms, and wildfires becoming more frequent and severe, the state's power infrastructure is under increasing strain. Experts warn that significant investments in grid hardening and modernization are needed to prevent future widespread blackouts. Deep dive on the Texas grid courtesy The Texas Tribune #TexasGrid #PowerOutages #ClimateChange https://ow.ly/zsrc50SHFm6

Recent severe weather events in Texas, such as Hurricane Beryl, have once again highlighted the urgency of addressing the resiliency needs and challenges in the electric grid. These storms caused extensive power outages affecting millions of Texans, revealing the weaknesses within the current infrastructure in the face of increasingly severe weather patterns intensified by climate change. Across the US, there is a critical need for substantial investments in upgrading and hardening the grid to improve resilience and reliability.   As climate change makes storms more severe and frequent, it's crucial to take proactive steps to be better prepared. Key stakeholders with influence, such as state legislators, policymakers, and regulators, need to collaborate with utilities and grid operators. There needs to be a strengthening of transmission and distribution systems and investment in local microgrids that can be supported by dispatchable resources, including battery energy storage systems. This is crucial to ensure a more robust energy grid that can withstand the impacts of an ever-changing environment.

Texas Legislators have focused on power generation — not power lines and poles. False bearers of witness of large power consumers "healing the grid! " & more power is better. Negates the Texas resident & business impacts. Come North to Alberta Canada Grid, NERC 10-year certainty-rated Resource & Reliability where we care if the lights are on. Enhanced public grid is the Norm, & for accelerated power outcomes NRG-HUB-1 provides critical multigrid resilience for life's essentials. https://lnkd.in/gx4zeJEg elemental Hardened by Nature. Engineered Certainty by Design. www.elementalpower.ca

As extreme weather and natural disasters increase in both severity and frequency, utilities' electrical #Grids will be especially affected. This is where Itron, Inc.'s intelligent grid edge solutions come into play. Now more than ever before, #Utilities need modernized infrastructure that enables grid resilience in times of need. One way of providing backup power during outages is with energy stored in electric vehicle batteries, which is what Matt Smith, senior director of smart grid management at Itron, and the team had to rely on during #ItronInspire22 when Hurricane Ian hit Florida. Get the full story in his interview with Climate Global News (CGN):

Here’s what extreme summer weather means for the grid, and how #PNNL researchers are stepping up to face the challenge.   Heatwaves:  -Higher demand for cooling.  -Reduced efficiency in power generation and transmission.  Wildfires:  -Increased fire risk from dry landscapes.  -Rapid Analytics for Disaster Response (RADR-Fire) model helps track and manage fire risks.  PNNL Solutions:  -Developing materials to improve power conduction in heat.  -Enhancing building energy efficiency.  -Modeling risks to prevent utility infrastructure from sparking fires.  -Extreme weather is intensifying. PNNL’s innovations are vital for a resilient power grid and community safety.  #Heatwave #Wildfires #GridResilience #PNNL #ClimateChange 

Early this year, the Dept. of Energy called for submissions for Grid Resilience Analysis and Climate Change Impacts (GRACI) funding. Public, private, and nonprofit institutions and companies were asked to accelerate analysis of regional climate change threats and resulting challenges to grid resiliency. UConn, in collaboration with University of Albany and several other partners, were awarded over $2 million in DOE funding to help with outage predictions and meteorology. “The Northeastern United States is the exemplar regional case for energy transition to electrification and renewables while highly exposed to risk of disasters from natural hazards, such as hurricanes, severe Nor’easters, and winter storms,” says Emmanouil Anagnostou, Interim Director of the UConn Tech Park and Director of the Eversource Energy Center. “These risks are projected to increase in severity and frequency across the region, as are heat waves, precipitation, and drought, creating unique challenges to power grid resilience.” Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/ezB5xjQR

Here’s what extreme summer weather means for the grid, and how #PNNL researchers are stepping up to face the challenge.   Heatwaves:  -Higher demand for cooling.  -Reduced efficiency in power generation and transmission.  Wildfires:  -Increased fire risk from dry landscapes.  -Rapid Analytics for Disaster Response (RADR-Fire) model helps track and manage fire risks.  PNNL Solutions:  -Developing materials to improve power conduction in heat.  -Enhancing building energy efficiency.  -Modeling risks to prevent utility infrastructure from sparking fires.  -Extreme weather is intensifying. PNNL’s innovations are vital for a resilient power grid and community safety.  #Heatwave #Wildfires #GridResilience #PNNL #ClimateChange 

Many electric grid systems worldwide haven’t caught up to the climate reality we’re now experiencing globally. As a result, planning for unforeseen weather emergencies and taking steps to ensure the increased resiliency of electric grids has become more essential than ever for utilities and the communities they serve.

From Jonathan Budner of Franklin Energy: "The devastating wildfire in Maui. Floods in California. A historic heat wave in the southern U.S. Multiple tornados and hailstorms in the Midwest. 2023 was a year of weather and climate disasters. And while we rightfully tend to focus on the destruction and human tragedy that occurs, it’s important to take a look at what this means for the nation’s electric grid, too. Floods can damage underground transformers, while hurricanes and blizzards often take out utility poles and power lines. And beyond the physical challenges our grid faces in harsh conditions, times of excess heat or cold quickly lead to customer demand spikes, which creates a whole new slew of problems. Even a robust grid would struggle to withstand this meteorological onslaught, and the U.S. electric grid is unfortunately not as robust as we would like. In fact, it has been described as brittle. And as it’s facing these challenges, it continues aging while receiving little relief. According to the U.S. DOE, 70% of transmission lines and power transformers are at least 25 years old. Despite the deadly combination of aging and a relentless assault of extreme weather conditions, our beleaguered grid has held up thus far. Vox reports that on July 27, 2023, in the hottest month since 1880, electric grids delivered the highest U.S. energy demand ever recorded: an hourly peak of 741,815 MWh." Keep reading on Energy Central: https://lnkd.in/ePvSHYfb

Read my Crain's Chicago Business OpEd with WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist Tom Skilling - “How to ensure we have an electric grid that can weather the future.” Here’s the bottomline: “To continue providing nation-leading reliability, however, ComEd must have the financial strength to attract the private capital needed to make investments necessary for managing climate risk. Earlier this year, ComEd submitted its Multi-Year Grid & Rate Plan to the Illinois Commerce Commission outlining a set of investments that will further strengthen the grid against severe weather over the next four years. With new distribution lines, underground cables, transformers and substations, the utility can account not only for future weather events but future growth in electric vehicles, rooftop solar and home electrification.” #CEJA #CEJAworks #ActOnClimate #ClimateAdaptation #TomSkilling