Grid Security Exercise (GridEx II): After-Action Report

Governors’ Guide to Modernizing the Electric Power Grid

Governors have a strong interest in ensuring that the electric power grid functions safely, reliably, and efficiently. Although it functions well overall and utilities have made many upgrades, the grid needs modern technologies and new infrastructure to meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century, including mitigating increased storm- and cyber- related threats, integrating the use of more renewable energy resources, and capitalizing on the greater availability of data on grid performance and electricity usage. Most recently, an attack by gunmen on a utility substation in California that caused damage but did not result in a power outage has …

Powering the Future: Ensuring That Federal Policy Fully Supports Electric Reliability

Over time, one of the most critical aspects of the electric grid – it’s reliability – has steadily improved./ Today, outages on the Bulk Power System generally occur in only a handful of exceptional circumstances. Yet there are new factors and forces that are rapidly changing our energy supply mix in a manner that could fundamentally alter or degrade the system all segments of the industry have so carefully built. Among these are a mass of new environmental regulations that have contributed to the closure of many existing power plants and threaten to impact even more and, increasingly, subsidies and …

The Economics of Grid Defection

Distributed electricity generation, especially solar PV, is rapidly spreading and getting much cheaper. Distributed electricity storage is doing the same, thanks largely to mass production of batteries for electric vehicles. Solar power is already starting to erode some utilities’ sales and revenues.

But what happens when solar and batteries join forces? Together they can make the electric grid optional for many customers—without compromising reliability and increasingly at prices cheaper than utility retail electricity. Equipped with a solar-plus-battery system, customers can take or leave traditional utility service with what amounts to a “utility in a box.”

This “utility in a box” …

Microgrids for Rural Electrification: A critical review of best practices based on seven case studies

Microgrids – distributed systems of local energy generation, transmission, and use – are today technologically and operationally ready to pro- vide communities with electricity services, particularly in rural and peri-urban areas of less developed countries. Over 1.2 billion people do not have access to electricity, which includes over 550 million people in Africa and 300 million people in India alone (International Energy Agency, 2012). In many of these places, the traditional approach to serve these communities is to extend the central grid. This approach is technically and financially inefficient due to a combination of capital scarcity, insufficient energy service, reduced …

Grid Energy Storage

Modernizing the electric system will help the nation meet the challenge of handling projected energy needs—including addressing climate change by integrating more energy from renewable sources and enhancing efficiency from non-renewable energy processes. Advances to the electric grid must maintain a robust and resilient electricity delivery system, and energy storage can play a significant role in meeting these challenges by improving the operating capabilities of the grid, lowering cost and ensuring high reliability, as well as deferring and reducing infrastructure investments. Finally, energy storage can be instrumental for emergency preparedness because of its ability to provide backup power as well …

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Various Electric Reliability Improvement Projects from the End Users’ Perspective

This report provides two of the three deliverables for the Cost Benefit Analysis of Various Electric Reliability Improvement Projects from the End Users’ Perspective. One of the two deliverables included in this report is a Summary Analysis of the cost to customers (residential, commercial, and industrial) of extended outages provided by day of the week, each 4 day combination of weekday and weekends, and a week. The other deliverable is a section of Mitigating Measures which describes the types of costs incurred to avoid outages, reduce duration and restore power. The mitigating measures costs are also distinguished as capital or …

Grid Integration of Aggregated Demand Response, Part 1: Load Availability Profiles and Constraints for the Western Interconnection

Capitalizing on the Evolving Power Sector: Policies for a Modern and Reliable U.S. Electric Grid

The U.S. electric power sector faces a significant transition  over the next decade, with implications for the cost, reliability,  and environmental impacts of the electricity supply.  Specifically, economic trends and state and federal energy  and environmental policies will continue to increase the  share of natural gas and renewable energy in the generation  mix. This ongoing shift provides an important opportunity to  consider policies and institutional structures that help the  electric grid adapt to changes in market conditions, policy,  and technology in ways that enhance system reliability and  maintain affordability. Low natural gas prices in the near- to  medium-term will be …

Vulnerability of National Power Grids to Electromagnetic Threats: Domestic and International Perspectives

Rapid evolution of the national power grid and the bulk power system in size, scope, technology, and structural complexity has been accompanied by a substantial increase in sensitivity to electromagnetic disturbances, both natural and malicious. This increasing sensitivity will be further exacerbated by extensive grid renovation in the next ten to twenty years. When combined with new evidence of infrequent but Severe Space Weather events and with rising concerns from international political instabilities and proliferation trends, this expanding sensitivity has introduced a new dimension of risk to power grid reliability and security. This article, following a technical and historical summary, …