Building a more resilient power grid to combat climate extremes
Critical infrastructure, like the power grid, gets battered by weather. A 2017 report by the U.S. Department of Energy estimates that up to 90% of power outages are caused by weather related events.
"Severe wind is probably the worst," said Paul Mallie, Supervisor of Alliant Energy's Distribution Systems Operations. "Then of course, storms with a lot of lightning."
Inside the Alliant Energy Distribution System Operations Center, the company is closely watching all potential disruptions to service. Crews can be dispatched to trouble spots and staffing is adjusted ahead of potential weather issues. This ranges from severe storms to winter storms and everything in between.
"Our local management, we may have a meeting to prepare, especially if we know the areas that may be affected," Mallie said. "However, sometimes it can be statewide."
A warming climate is one of the other larger threats to the power grid. The combination of warming temperatures with longer time periods of heat can stress the power systems in ways it was not originally designed to perform.
"Higher demands for electricity in the evening in the nighttime, when there might be less sun and potentially less wind," said Eric Larson, Climate Central's Senior Scientist of Energy Systems. "You're running the rest of your electricity system harder than you would otherwise would."
Dubuque's summer average low temperatures are 1.2 degrees warmer now since 1970. In Waterloo, the summer overnight lows are 1.8 degrees warmer over the last 50 years. This increased demand during warmer nights can strain the infrastructure during a time period power generation may not be as high.
"We need a much beefier transmission system, not only beefier in terms of resilience against climate change impacts, but also much larger than we have now," Larson said.
Alliant Energy is working on ways to mitigate a changing climate's impact of the grid. Following the 2020 derecho, more and more critical power lines are being buried under ground, away from the wind threat as more high impact severe storms threaten the Midwest. In addition, batteries are being incorporated into the system. These batteries can store power being generated during the daytime when solar and wind generation is out producing demand and can release it at night when demand may be higher and generation is lower.
"I would say that over my experience of 25 years, our system is much more hardy now, especially in the Cedar Rapids area, than in the past," Mallie said.
