Contribution to Book
Protecting the Power Grid from Climate Disaster
Climate Disaster Law: Barriers and Opportunities
(2018)
Abstract
This is a draft chapter. The final version will be available in Climate Disaster Law: Barriers and Opportunities edited by Rosemary Lyster & Robert R.M. Verchick, forthcoming 2018, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.
The material cannot be used for any other purpose without further permission of the publisher, and is for private use only.
The threats of extreme weather and slow onset events to electricity infrastructure have been well documented. Like so many climate-change threats, the problem of enhancing resilience in this infrastructure is less a lack of smart technology and more a lack of smart policy.
But also the relationship between generators, transmission and distribution networks, and users, which has been pretty straightforward since the days of Westinghouse and Edison, is rapidly changing. It now seems that the way to make the power grid more resilient in cases of extreme events — particularly the kinds aggravated by climate change — is to pay more attention to its durability and flexibility. Localized technologies like rooftop-solar generation now allow users to also act as generators in distributed energy systems. Digital systems embedded in transmission networks can now control how much power commercial users request at certain times or how much power generators will produce, giving the network some characteristics of the user and the generator. We divide that work into three categories: hardening the grid, smartening the grid, and greening the grid, and point to the law and policy innovations which are needed.
Keywords
- electricity infrastructure,
- extreme weather and slow onset events,
- hardening,
- smartening and greening the grid,
- resilience,
- renewable energy,
- battery storage,
- smart grids
Disciplines
Publication Date
2018
Editor
Rosemary Lyster & Robert R.M. Verchick
Publisher
Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.
Citation Information
Rosemary Lyster & Robert R.M. Verchick, Protecting the Power Grid from Climate Disaster, in Climate Disaster Law: Barriers and Opportunities (Edward Elgar Pub., Rosemary Lyster & Robert R.M. Verchick eds., 2018)