As power outages go, the Broadway Blackout of 2019 was pretty modest.
Transformers are critical components of the power grid: electricity travels from power plants through high-voltage power lines; transformers then step that power down to the lower voltages our homes and offices run on.
Utilities must struggle, not just to generate additional power, but also to juggle rapid shifts between different power sources, many located hundreds of miles apart.
Unlike power plants, these "Distributed sources" feed rapidly varying amounts of electricity back into the grid from thousands of locations.
According to a Department of Energy study, "Managing a grid with increasing amounts of customer-sited variable generation increases wear and tear on the distribution equipment required to maintain voltage and frequency within acceptable limits and to manage excessive heating of transformers during reverse power flow." In other words, some of the same issues that have caused previous blackouts-equipment overheating during periods of peak demand-are likely to get worse as solar power expands.
Alternative-energy boosters argue that distributed electricity generation will make the grid more reliable as it becomes less dependent on large power plants.
Whether last weekend's power outage turns out to have been caused by an overheated transformer or by some other failed component in our aging grid, the message is the same: our power-distribution system has not kept up with the times.
https://www.city-journal.org/2019-broadway-blackout
Transformers are critical components of the power grid: electricity travels from power plants through high-voltage power lines; transformers then step that power down to the lower voltages our homes and offices run on.
Utilities must struggle, not just to generate additional power, but also to juggle rapid shifts between different power sources, many located hundreds of miles apart.
Unlike power plants, these "Distributed sources" feed rapidly varying amounts of electricity back into the grid from thousands of locations.
According to a Department of Energy study, "Managing a grid with increasing amounts of customer-sited variable generation increases wear and tear on the distribution equipment required to maintain voltage and frequency within acceptable limits and to manage excessive heating of transformers during reverse power flow." In other words, some of the same issues that have caused previous blackouts-equipment overheating during periods of peak demand-are likely to get worse as solar power expands.
Alternative-energy boosters argue that distributed electricity generation will make the grid more reliable as it becomes less dependent on large power plants.
Whether last weekend's power outage turns out to have been caused by an overheated transformer or by some other failed component in our aging grid, the message is the same: our power-distribution system has not kept up with the times.
https://www.city-journal.org/2019-broadway-blackout
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