Grid Resiliency, Irma and the Downside of Waiting Until Disaster Strikes

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6316349320140509185

How Microgrids Can Improve Resilience.

I followed Hurricane Irma with a personal interest. My son is at the University of Georgia which was squarely in its path. Clearly it had been travelling over land for a while by the time it reached him and had been downgraded to a tropical storm. But it was still pretty wild – he was without power for 5 hours and some of his classmates were off for 24 hours. Not a big issue compared to the devastation in the Caribbean but he is still only a student and a long way from home.

Anyway, given that personal connection my eye was caught by the article below which talks about how microgrids are becoming more prevalent in the US in the wake of disasters such as this, as they can help with grid resilience and perhaps more importantly provide a resilient hub for the provision of essential services. In Florida, where three quarters of the population lost supply, a quarter of a million customers are still without power a week on. The article asked whether they should have done more to prepare for this by building more microgrids:

https://microgridknowledge.com/grid-resiliency-irma/

We don’t seem to talk about microgrids much in GB. If we do it seems to be primarily a concern about private wire networks and the distortions caused by current network charging, with little discussion of the potential benefits.

In the aftermath of the floods in Lancaster in 2015 (when I was still at Ofgem) I was very seized by the report that Lancaster University produced talking about the huge impact that loss of power has on all aspects of our lives as we become more dependent on technology. And the university discovered that its significant investment in renewable resources didn’t help when the main power was off.

Our RIIO price control regime provides strong incentives on companies to improve overall reliability but the main interruptions incentive excludes such major events.

On the back of the Lancaster floods I started looking at the role of microgrids and picked up on a report by the International Electrotechnical Commission (an independent standards body) on “Microgrids for disaster preparedness and recovery” that looked at disasters like Fukushima where microgrids which can operate on an “islanded” basis had helped in managing the impacts. One of its conclusions for policy makers was that microgrids should be considered as a broader system asset.

Clearly, in GB, we aren’t susceptible to Hurricanes on the same scale as the US but the consensus is we can expect more extreme weather – and the wider risks of terrorism, for example, cannot be ignored. It’s not really clear whose responsibility this is – probably more for government and public bodies as part of disaster planning. But the networks could facilitate that debate and bring their expertise to bear. Or – as the Irma article suggests – do we have to wait for a disaster to happen before this issue gets the traction it deserves?