understanding the electrical grid

Why do emergency managers, and others, need to understand what is happening with the electrical grid of today? Basically, our modern society does not function without electricity and the critical infrastructure interdependencies that are associated with electricity, its production, transmission and consumption are significant.

The link, Unlocking the Grid is a paid advertisement but it has some excellent information for wherever you are living and working here in the United States. I’m not an electrical engineer (low qualifications) but I have read that power generation is not the major concern, but the transmission of that power from where it is being generated to where it is needed. All the while people don’t high-power transmission lines anywhere near where they live. The NIMBY aspect is holding up plenty of transmission projects across the nation.

I found this one tidbit of information from the link above of interest, “Wind turbines power 10 percent of the U.S. electric grid, a proportion that has grown from less than 1 percent in 2005. Wind-power capacity totals 153 gigawatts, making it the fourth-largest source of electricity generation in the U.S. after natural gas, nuclear and coal. With some 6,000 turbines, Iowa has the highest wind-power share of any state, at 59 percent.” Wind power is no a minor source of electrical power and it will continue to grow in importance no matter what the national priorities are for “clean coal” (a nice slogan, but a misnomer when it comes to pollution.)

Another quote from the link, “As climate change makes hurricanes fiercer, it’s crucial to find solutions that limit the damage they bring to transmission lines to prevent prolonged power outages like those caused by Hurricane Milton in 2024, which left 3.2 million people in Florida without electricity. One emerging solution is dynamic line rating, an A.I.-driven technology that enables the creation of digital replicas of power systems. This allows operators to redistribute power with real-time monitoring while damaged lines are being repaired.”

I’ll let you read more! Like in everything else, knowing more about a topic makes you better informed about an uncertain future.