The US grid has been left to deteriorate. This year, a leading engineering society graded the country’s energy system a D+; 70 percent of transmission lines are more than 25 years old, 55 percent of transformers are near end of life, and the average lead time for new transformers is over a year. On top of all that, hotter and more frequent heat waves are degrading the grid.
Despite these deficiencies, new demands are being made of the system, from massive new “hyperscale” data centers and more electric vehicle charging stations to the onshoring of manufacturing. Additionally, as temperatures rise and cyberattacks boosted by artificial intelligence (AI) become more potent, the United States needs to invest in a more resilient grid—or risk an energy insecure future.
Past and future risks to grid reliability
Threats to electricity systems include many new and evolving digital and physical risks to companies, cities, and individuals, including disruptions to technological and communications services. On the physical side, floods, fires, and extreme heat events, which are increasingly posing physical threats to energy infrastructure. Digital threats come in the form of ransomware and other cyberattacks, and sometimes arise simply out of the enormous complexity of today’s systems. For example, the 2024 CrowdStrike disruption—which was caused by a faulty software update that crashed Windows systems worldwide—affected US Department of Energysystems as well as those at a number of electric utilities, and stranded or otherwise impacted 1.3 million airline passengers.
When these events occur, disruptions to commerce and society follow and highlight the obligations that infrastructure planners and defenders have to limit harm from such incidents—obligations that simply cannot be deferred.
And yet, upgrades to some of the most important parts of US critical infrastructure are being deferred. Today, on average, large US grid transformers, which are essential to electricity reliability, are past their designed lifespan, and the backlog for replacements is often three years or more. Grid operators—and all who depend on the grid—are forced to rely on this old equipment. Meanwhile, rising temperatures are aging grid components faster by increasing chemical and mechanical stress on them, which leads to reduced efficiency, faster degradation, and increased failure rates.
In addition to these long-standing challenges, three major trends have recently emerged that place additional pressure on the electric system: electricity-hungry, AI-powering data centers; the increasing number of electric vehicles and charging stations; and the electrification of everything, perhaps best represented by heat pumpsreplacing oil and gas-burning furnaces.
At the same time, the nation is confronted with operational risks and constraints that US grid managers are struggling mightily to manage, such as how to handle increasing shares of non-dispatchable renewable generation as well as rapid policy changes like executive orders to keep coal plants running and restart shuttered nuclear plants.
Disruption drives agile solutions
There is a way forward, inspired by past grid failures and wartime emergencies. When challenged with disruptions, grid operators have not only responded with agility but also applied lessons learned to greatly reduce the potential for future cascades.
The Northeastern blackout of 2003, for example, provided a major wake-up call. It affected 50 million people and cost about $6 billion. While numerous improvements followed, three in particular did much to improve the US grid’s resilience posture via enhanced communications: the installation by the Nuclear Energy Regulatory Committee (NERC) of a new conference bridge to greatly enhance communications during crises; the creation of a new set of procedures and protocols for reliability coordinator hotline calls; and enhancements to the decentralized system data exchange network with automated hourly uploads of outage data.
Another example—a far more devastating one—is Russia’s targeting of energy infrastructure in Ukraine. Under heavy attacks aimed at knocking out civilian infrastructure, Ukrainians, in a show of unity, deployed backup generators and battery packs in unprecedented numbers, adhered to strict schedules for electricity usage set by the utilities, and—as much as possible—decentralized power generation. Although the United States is not at war, the impacts of climate change and cyberattacks could have similar effects on infrastructure and require similar solutions. To address the growing demand for electricity, the United States must generate and deliver much greater quantities of electricity reliably, safely, and securely, all while limiting emissions. Enhanced demand management, as practiced with precision in Ukraine, is one tool that may help.
Anticipating future challenges
The truth is that the US electric system is not operating the way it was designed. That’s because its developers did not anticipate the arrival of such dynamism. Meeting new challenges will require leadership and collective will, and for society to make itself more resilient by preparing in advance for more and longer-duration outages with backup generators and microgrids.
To meet the challenges of a future where energy demand keeps rising, warming temperatures place new pressures on critical infrastructure, and cyber criminals threaten to cause massive disruption, the United States must leverage its collective imagination to rally its businesses and citizens to prepare for a less reliable grid. This is accomplished, in part, by full-scale exercises like NERC’s biennial GridEx series, as well as through regional resilience summits.
The property of resilience isn’t required until there is scarcity, a stressor, or other forms of adversity. It comes into play when an entity doesn’t have all that it needs or is under assault, but, by prior preparation, is not defeated.
Andy Bochman is the senior grid strategist for Idaho National Laboratory’s National and Homeland Security directorate.
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Image: Power lines (Tapani Hellman, Pixabay, https://pixabay.com/photos/power-lines-pylons-field-6586702/)
