19 - Building a Resilient Power Grid

Summary

When I dream about Hurricane Katrina, it always starts with the refrigerators. Kenmore, GE, Whirlpool, Frigidaire, Amana. Hundreds of thousands of these abandoned appliances stood duct-taped shut on the curbs and yards of homes throughout New Orleans. Katrina refrigerators are not the only, or even the most dramatic, example of the perils of power outages in extreme weather. From rancid food to emergency-room nightmares, communities take a punch when the lights go out. The nation’s aging power grid leaves us more susceptible to such risks. And the growing intensity of floods and storms on account of climate change make things even worse. But Katrina was not the only, or even the loudest siren blow. Since that time, storms have smashed or drowned parts of the grid in the Northeast (Hurricane Sandy), Houston (Harvey), the Southeast (Irma), and, most tragically, in Puerto Rico, where in 2018, Hurricane Maria knocked out 80% of the island’s electricity network, causing the largest blackout in U.S. history. In the same decade, catastrophic wildfires in Northern California focused attention on the neglected and antiquated system operated by Pacific Gas & Electric, which is believed to have ignited several devastating blazes over two years. Killing at least 84 people and destroying billions of dollars in property, the fires also required cycles of deliberate blackouts to protect parched forests from even more incendiary failures. In this way, the grid became both a cause and a victim of violent disaster. We need a power grid that is more resilient – one that has the capacity to cope with the kinds of low-frequency, high-impact events like those described above. In this chapter, I hope to show how we might get there. I’ll explain what the grid is, describe some of the grid’s most serious vulnerabilities – emphasizing the link to climate disruption and the outsized risks faced by marginalized groups – and propose some first steps toward making the grid more resilient and more productive for all.