Grid Mismanagement
It is not always an attack or an extreme weather event that causes an extended outage. Blackouts can also occur when the grid is mismanaged.
“Texas was warned for 30 years to prepare its energy systems for severe weather and climate change, but they didn't.”
Outages are not inevitable.
It does not have to end in darkness. There are things we can do to protect the electric grid from catastrophic failure.
We can work to improve, update, change the grid to be more resilient to potentially catastrophic events.
It is mismanagement to leave the electric grid vulnerable to potentially catastrophic, long-term outages.
Managing Assets
Preventing Outages
The grid is big, complex, delicate, easily thrown off. This means that we need to strike a balance between non-carbon sources and carbon sources because the grid is not ready to transition all at once.
With strong calls for the rapid transition to renewable energy, we have to be responsible. Some states that rely on renewables for a significant amount of their power generation are struggling with grid reliability. For example, California gets nearly one-third of its electricity from renewable sources but recently announced plans to construct 5 new natural gas plants to prevent blackouts.
Bouncing Back
Even though we do not want there to be an outage, if and when there is, we want communities to be prepared.
Microgrids offer a local solution to the problems created by blackouts.