After decades of hard work, clean energy is booming in the United States, electric vehicle sales are soaring, and wind and solar power generation are growing rapidly, bringing hope to the fight against climate change.
However, experts say that without a major overhaul of the United States' outdated power infrastructure, a massive undertaking costing over US$2 trillion (approximately NT$59 trillion), the development of green energy will be a significant obstacle. The current network of transmission lines, substations, and transformers is experiencing numerous problems due to aging and underinvestment, and with the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, large-scale failures are becoming more common.
US power grid operators underestimated climate risks, leading to doubled blackouts in the past six years
Reuters found that seven regional power grid operators in the United States underestimated the growing threat of severe weather as climate change impacts them. The risk models they used to inform transmission and distribution network investments were based on weather patterns from the 1970s and failed to factor in recent scientific research examining how extreme weather can disrupt power generation, transmission and distribution, and fuel supplies simultaneously.
Recent extreme weather events have exposed weaknesses in the nation's power infrastructure. New Orleans's power grid was built in the 1970s, when hurricanes like Hurricane Ida, with winds reaching 241 kilometers per hour (152 kilometers per hour), were uncommon. Most of the grid was designed only to withstand peak winds of 152 kilometers per hour. Hurricane Ida caused power outages for weeks.
Weather events and related fuel supply shortages are the primary reasons for the sharp increase in power outages in the United States, according to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), the grid regulator.
A Reuters review of official data found an average of 9,656 power outages per year between 2015 and 2020, double the average of 4,609 over the previous six years. This worsening trend coincides with a surge in natural disasters: According to the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCIA), the United States experienced 229 weather disasters between 2002 and 2021, each causing losses exceeding $1 billion (NT$29.5 billion) (total losses adjusted for inflation over that period), compared to just 94 such events between 1980 and 2001.
Weather is becoming more extreme, and the power grid is getting older. The U.S. Department of Energy's previous comprehensive review of the grid infrastructure in 2015 found that 70% of America's transmission lines were more than 25 years old (lines typically have a 50-year lifespan), and that the large transformers that handle 90% of America's electricity flow were, on average, over 40 years old—a period around which transformer failure rates typically increase, according to Swiss Re research.
Failure to adequately upgrade the grid will stifle green energy's advantages
The United States' aging power infrastructure will be one of the biggest obstacles to President Joe Biden's clean energy and climate change efforts.
The Biden administration has pledged to achieve net zero carbon emissions from the electricity sector by 2035 and net zero carbon emissions nationwide by 2050. Such rapid growth in clean energy will put pressure on the national power grid in two ways: the surge in electric vehicles will lead to a significant increase in electricity demand, and the reliability of renewable energy may be problematic on days when the sun or wind is weak.
Source: Environmental Information Center (https://e-info.org.tw/node/234157)
