Severe Storms

Severe storms can have detrimental effects on the electric grid causing outages, sometimes for weeks and potentially for months.

A 2019 report from Oak Ridge National Laboratory explains the vulnerabilities of the electric grid to extreme weather events. 

High Temperatures

On June 27, 2021, in Portland, Oregon, high temperatures from a heatwave caused cable cords to melt, creating a domino effect to many aspects of life for residents. With cords to streetcars destroyed, transit was stopped and as temperatures rose higher and higher, blackouts arose all over the area because the power grid could not handle the overload.

Floods and Hurricanes

Hurricane Ida recently caused 1.1 million outages after making landfall on August 29th.

In places that were hit the hardest, recovery will take weeks.

What can be done?

According to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, “Heat waves can also affect electricity generators, potentially causing physical damage above a certain temperature threshold or forcing curtailment to avoid safety hazards. One approach for assessing generator vulnerabilities to heat waves assigns each generator a heat wave vulnerability level based on its geographic location (coastal or inland), the type of generator (thermal or other) and the cooling method (presence of a cooling tower).”