Building Grid Resiliency

Last year, Hurricane Maria decimated Puerto Rico’s electric grid, leaving  3.4 million customers without power -- becoming the largest power outage in US history.  The catastrophic damage to the grid, and its effect on millions of people, laid bare the need and urgency for electric utilities to create a modernized grid infrastructure that is more resilient to natural disasters.

In Puerto Rico’s case, the New York Power Association (NYPA), together with the Puerto Rico Resiliency Working Group,  released a comprehensive assessment of the damage Hurricane Maria caused to Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s electric grid and their recommendations for how the grid can be rebuilt and transformed to enhance its resiliency to weather-related disasters. The report details a large array of resilience options for Puerto Rico’s grid, but these three recommendations stood out as innovative and replicable solutions:

Increased Presence of  Distributed Energy Resources (DER):

Distributed Energy Resources (DER) are small, decentralized, power sources that are often located near sites of consumption. One of the most popular forms of DER is solar photovoltaic (PV) installations, especially in regions that allow customers to sell excess energy via net metering. Other forms of DER include small-scale wind installations and opportunities for storing electricity, such as battery storage technology. When working in tandem via control systems, strategic deployment of DER can allow for portions of the grid to act as “microgrids” -- a section of an electric grid that can “island” itself from the larger grid infrastructure and function autonomously. Additionally, DER can be extremely important in the aftermath of a natural disaster, as they can allow critical infrastructure (i.e. hospitals and water treatment facilities) to function in the event of a large-scale outage.

Diversification of Electric Generation Fleet by Utilizing Natural Gas:

Increasingly, electric utilities are incorporating natural gas plants into their generation fleet. The use of natural gas for electric generation provides many benefits to the grid. In the case of Puerto Rico, diversifying the island’s energy portfolio by increasing the use of natural gas may be a viable avenue for decreasing its reliance on costly coal and oil imports. While studies must be conducted to examine the feasibility of the integration of natural gas into Puerto Rico’s grid infrastructure, the deployment of this particular fossil fuel for electric generation has proven benefits. Natural gas power plants have quicker start and stop capabilities than traditional fossil fuel plants, providing flexibility to any electric grid by swiftly generating electricity to meet the demand of customers, especially during times when DER and renewable energy resources are unable to. Additionally, the low carbon emissions rate of natural gas (compared to other fossil fuels), make this abundant resource an avenue for utilities to develop electric grids that are more resilient, while mitigating the anthropogenic impact of electric generation on the Earth’s climate.

Developing Systems that Support Distribution Automation:

Before it reaches your home and powers your devices, electricity is funneled through high voltage transmission and low voltage distribution systems. While utilities often have systems in place that allow them to observe and control electric transmission and generation assets, such as Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, this capability does not often extend to distribution systems. In order to quickly rectify outages, utilities must have a strong situational awareness of the state of low voltage systems that directly power homes and businesses. Advanced Distribution Management Systems (ADMS),  integrative software that combines multiple utility applications, support the automation of distribution systems by allowing networked grid equipment to communicate with one another. With such a system in place, distribution networks are able to “self heal” by automatically identifying faulty components of the grid, isolating them, and rerouting energy to healthy grid infrastructure. Through ADMS, utility operators will be able to quickly identify the underlying cause of outages, enhancing response capabilities during natural disasters.

Conclusion:

When strategically implemented, these three methods have the potential to strengthen existing grid infrastructure in Puerto Rico and beyond, creating electric grids that are more durable, flexible, and resilient to natural disasters.