The Baltimore Gas and Electric Fizell Substation in Edgemere, Md., is about a year old and built so it can eventually be modified to provide additional capacity.
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The Baltimore Gas and Electric Fizell Substation in Edgemere, Md., is about a year old and built so it can eventually be modified to provide additional capacity.
Ian Morton for NPR
The electricity grid in the US is aging and is having a hard time meeting current demand. It faces a future with more people driving more electric cars and heating homes with more electric furnaces.
That’s not even the biggest problem facing the country’s electricity infrastructure, says Alice Hill.
“Everything that we have built, including the grid, assumes that the climate is stable. “It looks to the extremes of the past – how high the seas are, how strong the winds are, how the temperatures are.”
Hill is an energy and environment expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. She served as a staff member of the National Security Council during the Obama administration, where she led efforts to develop climate resilience. She says that extreme weather in the past can no longer safely guide future electricity planning.
“It’s like we’re building an airplane on the fly because the climate is changing and speed increases as it changes,” says Hill.
A street fire became an impromptu flashlight in front of the darkened Flatiron Building in Manhattan during a power outage following Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
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A street fire became an impromptu flashlight in front of the darkened Flatiron Building in Manhattan during a power outage following Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
Mario Tama / Getty Images
The newly approved infrastructure package spends billions of dollars to update the energy grid. Hill says utility companies and public planners around the country are having to adapt. She points to storm surge during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
“They thought the maximum would be 12 feet,” she said. “That tide hit nearly 14 feet. It broke through barriers at the tip of Manhattan, and then the power grid – a substation blew up. The city never sleeps. [was] go dark. “
Hill notes that Con Edison, the company that powers New York City, has responded with upgrades to its electrical grid: burying power lines, introducing artificial intelligence, upgrading software to generate electricity. show error. But she says it’s harder to upgrade the way people assess risk.
“What happens is some people tend to think, the last storm we’ve just been through, that’s going to be the worst, isn’t it?” Hill said. “No, there’s a worse storm ahead. And then, maybe, that will be over.”
In 2021, the United States sees power outages for millions of people as a result of historic winter storms in Texas, a heatwave in the Pacific Northwest, and Hurricane Ida along the Gulf Coast. Climate change will only make extreme weather more likely and more severe.
And that has forced utility companies and others to grapple with the question: How can we prepare for something we’ve never experienced?
Modern power plant
In the town of Edgemere, Md., Baltimore Gas and Electric’s Fitzell Substation supplies electricity to homes and businesses in the area. The facility is just over a year old, and Laura Wright, transmission and substation engineering director, says it’s built with the future in mind.
Laura Wright, Technical Director of Substation and Transmission, presents safety information before entering the Fitzell substation.
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Laura Wright, Technical Director of Substation and Transmission, presents safety information before entering the Fitzell substation.
Ian Morton for NPR
She said that the four transformers on the site are numerous now. And to meet the anticipated demand for future population growth and reliance on electric cars, she says, the substation has been designed to be easily upgraded.
“They don’t expect to need that extra capacity for a while, but we designed the station to be able to take that transformer out and fit it into a larger transformer,” says Wright.
The slopes are designed to insulate the substation from sea level rise. And if the substation experiences something like a catastrophic flood event or deadly tornado, there’s a plan for that, too.
“If we had one transformer failure,” says Wright, “we could bring one of those portable transformers into the substation, put it in the substation, hook it up in place of the substation,” says Wright. that transformer. And we can do it in two to three days. “
The Fitzell substation is a new, modern complex. Older sites can be down for weeks.
The Fitzell substation is built to withstand sea level rise and has backup plans, in the event of severe flooding or tornadoes.
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The Fitzell substation is built to withstand sea level rise and has backup plans, in the event of severe flooding or tornadoes.
Ian Morton for NPR
What does infrastructure law actually do?
That begs the question: Can the grid-specific money in the new infrastructure law really make meaningful changes to the energy system across the country?
“Unfortunately, the infrastructure bill only scratches the surface,” said Daniel Cohan, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University.
In spite of White House says $65 billion of infrastructure legislation specifically for electrical infrastructure, Analysis by World Resources Institute note that just $27 billion will go to the grid — a number that Cohan also used.
“If you go into the amount for the grid, it’s only about $27 billion, and it’s mainly for research and demonstration projects and some ways to get started,” he said.
Cohan, also the author of the upcoming book Confronting the Climate Grid, said federal taxpayer dollars can be substantial, but most of the required investment will eventually come from the private sector — from utility companies and other businesses spending “everything”. hundred billion dollars per decade.” He also said that the infrastructure package “misses a number of opportunities” to initiate private sector action through mandates.
“It’s better than nothing, but you know, given the important challenges we face, this isn’t really up to the challenge,” Cohan said.
Cohan argues that thinking big, and not incremental, can be productive. He believes a complete transition from fossil fuels to clean energy by 2035 is realistic and achievable – a goal Biden administration holds – and can lead to more benefits than just the environment.
“It could also lead to more affordable electricity, more reliable electricity, a quicker return to power supply when these extreme events occur,” he said. “So we’re not just doing it to go green or to protect our air and climate, but we can actually have a much better, more reliable supply of energy in future.”
This story is part of a All things Considered series on the state of America’s infrastructure and the federal law that addresses it. Ayen Bior and Courtney Dorning produced and edited this story for broadcast. Patrick Jarenwattananon helped adapt it for the web.
