Romany Webb, a researcher at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, said US utility companies need to account for the changing climate - evaluating whether existing stations are located in areas at risk of flooding, how severe droughts may affect the power plant operations, or how power lines might be impacted by increasing temperatures. At least 14 of the state’s 44 outages during that time were due to these preemptive shutdowns. Utilities in California are required to implement public safety power shutoffs to reduce risks of equipment flaring during extreme wildfire days. And, they said, wildfires are a growing threat to stable electricity there. In California, researchers documented 44 weather-related outages between 20 – more than a third of the state’s total since 2000. The report also noted that the state operates its own grid independently from the countries two main grids, which makes it challenging to draw power from elsewhere during disaster events. Severe weather, winter storms and hurricanes caused a majority of the outages.
Texas utilities reported around 80 weather-related outages between 20 alone – about 44% of Texas’s total since 2000. The state’s grid operator asked residents to limit electricity use, keeping thermostats at 78 degrees or higher and avoid using large, power-sucking appliances during peak times.
BLACKOUTS SKYROCKET AMID GLOBAL POLITICAL OFFLINE
Then in May, a heatwave knocked six natural-gas power plants offline in Texas. Manuel Balce Ceneta/APīiden's Delaware vacation home faces 'extreme' flood risk as climate change leads to rising seas President Joe Biden stops and speaks to members of the media as he walks on the beach with his granddaughter Natalie Biden and daughter Ashley Biden, in Rehoboth Beach, Del., Monday, June 20, 2022. Climate researchers have noted many of these phenomena are becoming more intense and more frequent as global temperatures rise.
Using federal data provided by utility companies and the North American Electric Reliability Corp., researchers found more than 1,500 cases of extreme weather-related power outages since 2000, including those caused by high wind heavy rain and thunderstorms winter weather, including snow, ice and freezing rain hurricanes extreme heat and wildfires. “It is not prepared for the climate that we have now, and the climate we’re going to see in the future.” “The system we have right now was not built in a time and climate we’re experiencing now,” she added. “This is really something that we should be concerned about because this is affecting all of us and we’re seeing more of them,” Kaitlyn Trudeau, data analyst with Climate Central who worked on the report, told CNN. Researchers reported that outages in the past 10 years had increased by 64% compared with the previous decade. Phillip/APĮnergy experts sound alarm about US electric grid: 'Not designed to withstand the impacts of climate change'Īnd those numbers are on an upward trend. Energy experts tell CNN that some power grid operators are not considering in their plans how the climate crisis is causing more extreme weather.
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