A2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, OCTOBER 25 , 2021
with the argument thatsevere
weatherevents are one of seven
“megatrends”(including cy-
berthreats and population
growth) thatrequire greater in-
vestment, according toaPower-
Point presentation included in
testimonytothestate.Thecom-
panyownsthetwolargestutili-
ties inNorthCarolina, DukeEn-
ergyCarolinas and DukeEnergy
Progress.
Vote Solar,anonprofit climate
advocacygroup,objected to
Duke’splan, saying the utilityhad
failed tostudy the risks of climate
impacts. Duke’sflood maps, for
example, had not been updated to
reflectthelatestprojections for
sea level rise, theysaid.Intesti-
mony,Vote Solar claimed Duke
was using environmental trends
to justifyinvestments “it had al-
ready decided to pursue.”
TheUnited States is one of the
fewcountries where regulated
utilities are usually guaranteed a
rateofreturn on capital invest-
ments.Thatbusiness model in-
centivizes spending regardless of
how well it solves problems for
customers and inspires skepti-
cism. Ric O’Connell,executive di-
rector of GridLab,anonprofit
group thatassistsstateand re-
gional policymakers on electrical
grid issues, said utilities in many
states “are waving their hands
and saying hurricanes” to justify
spending thatwould do little to
improve climate resilience.
DukeEnergyspokesmanJeff
Brooks acknowledged thatthe
companyhad not conducted a
climate riskstudy but pointed out
thatthistypeofanalysis isstill
relatively newfor the industry. He
said Duke’sgridimprovement
plan “inherently was designed to
think about future needs,”includ-
ing reinforced substations with
walls thatrise several feetabove
the previous high watermark for
flooding,and partly relied on
federal flood maps to determine
whichstations areatmostrisk.
Brooks said Dukeisnotusing
weatherevents to justifyroutine
projects, noting thatthecompany
had spent more thanayear meet-
ing with communitystakeholders
and using their feedback to make
significant changes to its grid
improvement plan.
This year,theNorthCarolina
Utilities Commissionfinally ap-
provedaset of grid improve-
ments thatwillcostcustomers
$1.2 billion. But the commission
reserved the right to denyDuke
re imbursement of those costs if it
cannot prove theyare prudent
andreasonable. Thecommis-
sion’sgeneral counsel, SamWat-
son, declined to discuss the deci-
sion, saying the commission canHAPPENING TODAYFor the latest updates all day, visit washingtonpost.com.Allday|TheAssociation ofSoutheast AsianNations (ASEAN)holds a
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Liveeventstime, theyare connected to a
larger utilitysystem. But in the
event of an outage, microgrids
can operateontheir own, with
the aid of solar energystored in
batteries.
InFlorida, regulators recently
approvedafour-year microgrid
pilot project, but the technology
remainsexpensive and unproven.
In Maryland, regulators in 2016
rejectedaplan to spend about
$16 million fortwomicrogrids in
Baltimore, in partbecause the
local utilitymade noattempt to
quantify“thetangible benefits to
itscustomer base.”
InTexas,where officials have
largely abandonedstateregula-
tion in favor of the free market,
the results have been no more
encouraging. Without require-
ments, as existelsewhere, for
buildingextracapacityfor times
of high demand orstress, the
statewas ill-equipped to handle
an abnormal deep freeze inFeb-
ruarythatknocked out power to
4millioncustomers for days.
Since then, BerkshireHatha-
wayEnergyand Starwood Energy
Group each proposed spending
$8 billion to build newpower
plants to provide backup capac-
ity,with guaranteed returns on
the investment of9percent, but
theTexas legislature has not act-
ed on either plan.
NewYork is one of the few
states where regulators have as-
sessed the risks of climate change
and pushed utilities to investin
solutions. After 800,000 New
Yorkers lostpower for 10 days in
2012 in the wakeofHurricane
Sandy,state regulators ordered
utilitygiant Con Edison toevalu-
atethe state’svulnerabilityto
weatherevents.
Theresulting report, which es-
timated climate risks could cost
the companyasmuch as $5.2 bil-
lion by 2050, gave ConEd data to
inform its investments instorm
hardening measures, including
newstorm walls and submersible
equipment in areasat risk of
flooding.
Meanwhile, theNewYorkPub-
lic Service Commission has ag-
gressively enforced requirements
thatutilitycompanieskeep the
lights on during bigstorms,fin-
ing utilityproviders nearly
$190 million for violations in-
cluding inadequatestaffing dur-
ingTr opical StormIsaias in 2020.
“Atthe endoftheday, we do not
wantNewYorkers to beatthe
mercyofoutdatedinfrastruc-
ture,” saidRoryM.Christian, who
lastmonth was appointed chair of
theNewYorkcommission.Theprice of inaction
In NorthCarolina, as Duke
Energyslowly works to harden
the grid, some are pursuing other
means of fostering climate-resil-
ient communities.
Beth Schrader,the recovery
and resilience director forNew
Hanover County,which includes
Wilmington, said some of the
people whowent the longest
withoutpower after Florence had
no vehicles, no access to nearby
grocerystores and no means of
getting to reliefcenters setup
around the city.
Forexample, QuaneshaMull-
ins,a37-year-old mother of three,
went eight days without power in
her housing projectonWilming-
ton’s eastside.Herfamilygotby
on food from the Red Cross and
walkedamile to chargetheir
phonesatMcDonald’s.With no
air conditioning,theyslept with
the windows open inaneighbor-
hood withahistoryofviolent
crime.
Schrader is working with re-
searchers at the Universityof
NorthCarolina inCharlotte to
estimate the costofhelping peo-
ple likeMullins.The researchers
estimate thatitwould have cost
about $5 72 ,000 to provide shel-
ter,meals and emergencyfood
stamp benefits to 100 families for
twoweeks, said RobertCox,an
engineering professor who re-
searches power systemsatUNC-
Charlotte.
Such calculations could help
spur local governments to do
more to help vulnerable commu-
nities, forexample by providing
“resilience outposts” with backup
power generators, heating or
cooling rooms, Internetaccess
and other resources, Schrader
said. But theyalso are intended to
show the costs of failing to shore
up the grid.
“The regulators need to be
moved along,” Coxsaid.
Inthe meantime,TonyeGray
finds herself worrying about
whathappens when the next
storm hits. While DukeEnergy
says it is burying power lines in
the mostoutage-prone areas, she
has yettosee its yellow-vested
crews turn up in her neighbor-
hood.
“Wefeel,”she said,“thatwe’re
atthe end of the line.”
[email protected]
[email protected]Sa hanaJayaraman contributed to
thisreport.EnergyInformation Administra-
tion —more than double the
outagetimefive years ago.
This year alone,awaveofab-
normally severe winter storms
causedadisastrous power failure
in Texas, leaving millionsof
homes in the dark, sometimes for
days, andatleast200 dead.Power
outages caused byHurricaneIda
contributed toatleast14deaths
inLouisiana, as some of the poor-
estparts of the statesuffered
through weeks of 90-degree heat
without air conditioning.
As storms grow fiercer and
more frequent, environmental
groups are pushingstates to com-
pletely reimagine the electrical
grid, incorporating more batter-
ies, renewable energysources and
localized systems known as “mi-
crogrids,”which theysaycould
reduce the incidence of wide-
scale outages.Utilitycompanies
have proposed their ownstorm-
proofing measures, including
burying powerlinesunder-
ground.
Butstate regulators largely
have rejected these ideas, citing
pressure tokeep energyrates af-
fordable. Of the $15.7billion in
grid improvements under consid-
eration lastyear,regulators ap-
proved only $3.4billion, accord-
ing toanational surveybythe NC
Clean EnergyTechnologyCenter
—about one-fifth.
Afteraweather disaster,“ev-
erybody’sstanding around say-
ing,‘Whydidn’t youspend more
to keep the lights on?’”Ted
Thomas, chairman of the Arkan-
sasPublic Service Commission,
said in an interviewwithThe
WashingtonPost.“But when you
trytospend more when the sys-
tem is working,it’satough sell.”
Amajor impediment is the
failure bystateregulators and the
utilityindustrytoconsider the
consequences ofamore volatile
climate—and to come up with
better tools to prepare for it.For
example,aBerkeleyLabstudy
lastyear of outages caused by
major weatherevents in sixstates
found thatneitherstateofficials
nor utilityexecutivesattempted
to calculate the social and eco-
nomic costs of longer and more
frequent outages, such as food
spoilage, business closures, sup-
ply chain disruptions and medi-
cal problems.
“There is no question thatcli-
matic changes are happening that
directly affectthe operation of the
power grid,”saidJustin Gund-
lach, asenior attorneyatthe
Institute forPolicyIntegrity, a
think tankatNewYorkUniversity
LawSchool.“Whatyoustill ha-
ven’t seen...is a[state] commis-
sion saying: ‘Isn’t climate the
through line in all of this?Let’s
examine it in an open-ended way.
Let’sfigureoutwhere the infor-
mation takes us and makesome
decisions.’”
In interviews, several state
commissioners acknowledged
thatfailure.
“Our electric grid was not built
to handle thestorms thatare
coming this next century,”said
Tr emaineL.Phillips,acommis-
sioner on theMichigan Public
Service Commission, which in
Augustheld an emergencymeet-
ing to discuss the problem of
power outages.“Weneed to come
up withabroader setofmetrics in
order to better understand the
success of future improvements.”Five disasters in four years
Theneed is especially urgent in
NorthCarolina,astate thathas
declaredafederal disaster from a
hurricane or tropicalstormfive
timesinthe pastfour years.
Among them wasHurricane Flor-
ence, which brought torrential
rain, catastrophic flooding and
thestate’sworstoutageinovera
decade in September 2018.
More than1million residents
were leftdisconnected from re-
frigerators, air conditioners, ven-
tilators and other essential ma-
chines, some for up totwoweeks.
Elderly residents dependent on
oxygenwere evacuated from
nursing homes. Reliefteams flew
medical supplies to hospitalscut
offbyflooded roads. Desperate
people facing closedstores and
rotting food lootedaWilmington
Family Dollar.
“I havePTSD fromHurricane
Florence, not because of the actu-
alstorm but the aftermath,”said
Evelyn Bryant,acommunityor-
ganizer who took partinthe
Wilmington response.
Thestormreignited debate
over a$13 billion proposal by
DukeEnergy,one of the largest
power companies in the nation, to
reinforce thestate’spower grid. A
fewmonths earlier,thestatehad
rejected Duke’srequestfor full
repayment of those costs, deter-
mining thatprotecting the grid
againstweather isanormalpart
of doing business and not eligible
for thetype of reimbursement the
companyhad sought.
After Florence, Dukeoffered a
smaller,$2.5 billion plan, alongOUTAGESFROMAHigh costs slow changes to power grid
Sources:U.S.EnergyInformation Administration;
TheCThreeGroup NICKMOURTOUPALAS/THEWASHINGTON POSTDespite growinginvestmentsbyu tilities, powergrids
remain fragileCapitalexpenditures from DukeEnergyCarolinas, includingtransmission
and distribution, but not maintenance.050 0M1B$1.5B2013 2014 2015 2016 20172018 2019 20201K outage minutes per customer7505002500
2013 2014 2015 2016 20172018 2019 2020Hurricane Florence
caused major power
outages across the stateOutagesexperiencedbyDukeEnergyCarolinascustomersinNorth Carolina
duringnormal power outages and major events, such as hurricanes.Normal power outage Major eventSource:U.S.EnergyInformationAdministration NICKMOURTOUPALAS/THEWASHINGTONPOSTIncreasedpower outag es na tionwide often sparked
by climate disasters
Change inaverage annual power outage minutes per utility customer,
2013-2015 compared to 2018-2020 three-yearaverage.ALAZ ARCA COCTDCDEFLGAID ILIA INKSKYLAMEMDMN MI MAMSMOMTNENVNHNJNMNYNCNDOHOKOR PA RISCSDTXUTVTVAWAWVWIWYAKHITN-100% (^0100200) 300+
Change in minutesof poweroutages:
Hurricane
Laura (2020)
Derecho storm (2020)
causedamassive
spikeinpower outages
Wildfires
(2019)
Fewer More
Tr opicalstorm
Isaias(2020)
comment on specific cases only in
public orders.
Theutilityisnow burying pow-
er lines in “several neighbor-
hoods across thestate”thatare
most vulnerable to wide-scale
outages, Brooks said.Itisalso
fitting aboveground power lines
with“self-healing”technology, a
network of sensors thatdiverts
electricityawayfrom equipment
failures to minimize the number
ofcustomers affected by an out-
age.
Aspartofasettlement with
Vote Solar,DukeEnergylastyear
agreed to work withstateofficials
and local leaders to furtherevalu-
atethepotential impacts of cli-
mate change, aprocess that
Brooks said isexpected to take
twotothreeyears.
High costs create hurdles
Thedebate inNorthCarolina is
being echoed instates across the
nation,where burying power
lines has emerged as one of the
mostcommon proposals for insu-
lating the grid from high winds,
fires and flooding.Butopponents
have balkedatthe cost, which can
run in the millions of dollars per
mile.
InCalifornia, forexample,Pa-
cific Gas&Electric wants to bury
10,000 miles of power lines, both
to makethegrid more resilient
and to reduce the risk of sparking
wildfires.Itspower equipment
has contributed to multiple dead-
ly wildfires in the pastdecade,
including the 2018 Camp Fire that
killedatleast85people.
PG&E’sproposal has drawn
scorn from critics, including San
JoseMayor Sam Liccardo, who
sayitwould be tooslow and
expensive. ButPatriciaPoppe, the
company’sCEO,told reporters
thatdoing nothing would cost
Californiaeven more in lostlives
and property.The plan has yetto
be submitted to thestate, but
TerrieProsper,aspokeswoman
for the CaliforniaPublicUtilities
Commission, said the commis-
sion has supported underground
linesasawildfire mitigation
strategy.
Another oft-floated solution is
microgrids, small electrical sys-
tems thatprovide power to a
single neighborhood, university
or medical center.Mostofthe
“We know we’re
going to get hit.”
Tonye Gray,aWilmington, N.C.,
resident who says she is frustrated by
the city’s vulnerability to storms
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