August 2, 2021
Kati Vombergar and Sophia Wennstedt
The United States set a new heat record for June with 8 states reaching their hottest Junes including Arizona, California, Nevada, and Massachusetts.
This past Monday, Salem, Oregon was one of the hottest cities in the United States with temperatures reaching 117 degrees Fahrenheit in the afternoon. In Portland, the heat was so severe that power cables began to melt causing streetcar services to shut down. Additionally, Boston reached 97 degrees — setting another record.
The heat wave in the Pacific Northwest caused temperatures to soar, as well as heat related deaths where air conditioning is not as widely used. Over 800 people are estimated to have died due to the unanticipated heat, a number that is expected to rise.
Meanwhile, the impact has been disproportionately worse for marginalized black, brown, and Indigenous communities. Low income neighborhoods and communities of color tend to experience more intense heat due to lack of tree cover and green spaces, and more paved surfaces that soak up the heat. Simultaneously, residents pay a higher proportion of their household income toward air conditioning — making it even more challenging to stay cool.
The elderly, very young, those with certain medical conditions, and those who work outdoors are more susceptible to the impacts of the extreme heat as well. As the heat continues to surge, those who work outside and in warehouses are vulnerable to dangerous side effects. In Oregon, a 51-year-old man collapsed outside the Walmart he worked at, while a 38-year-old farmworker died working on a 104-degree day near Willamette Valley.
The recent heat waves are not the first time the United States has seen serious problems in the energy grid. In February, nearly 5 million people lost power in Texas from a winter storm.
Climate change is the driving force behind the crazy weather we have been witnessing. Heat, drought, and fire are all being caused by climate change from dirty carbon grid emissions trapping gases that cause baseline temperatures to rise.
The old, unstable energy grid in the United States is not built to handle the growing effects of climate change. As climate change persists, air conditioning usage and costs will increase. As more people run their air conditioning and other systems to stay cool, the grid must make and transmit more power, but it might not have the facilities to do so.
When summer comes around, people use a lot more energy to stay cool. In Texas, grid operators estimate that the increasing severity of summer heat can result in doubling the peak electricity use. Many energy companies will struggle struggle to meet demand
In June, California suggested that residents charge their electric vehicles during off-peak hours as a means to conserve energy. New York City sent an emergency mobile alert urging residents to save energy.
Heat waves are managed through reliable power, air conditioning, and plenty of water; however, if you are missing one of these items — things can be bad. The outdated electrical infrastructure in the United States is growing increasingly vulnerable to power outages and other weather-related disruptions.
We can expect extreme weather events, such as heat waves, to become more frequent and intense as climate change continues to persist. The aging grid infrastructure in the United States is extremely unprepared for this imminent future.
The American Society of Civil Engineers has given the United States between a D+ and C- on our energy infrastructure. While a report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory warned that extreme heat can cause grid failures because over 70% of power plants require cooling.
The heat is making things worse. The hot weather can drive up energy demand as people use air conditioners and fans to compensate for the temperature. As the demand increases, the electric grid is more likely to overload causing rolling brownouts and blackouts to occur.
In areas where the temperature is typically high, such as Arizona, the grid is set up to manage the heat. When the weather reaches over 100 degrees, the grid is able to supply adequate power because the demand was anticipated. While areas that do not normally reach hot temperatures, such as Oregon, do not have the facilities to manage that weather.
Climate change makes the weather increasingly unpredictable. When the weather is unpredictable, you cannot anticipate an accurate demand response.
To solve this problem, utilities are looking to build resilience and adaptability. Decentralizing generation, locating smaller utility-scale facilities closer to population centers, reduces reliance on long transmission lines vulnerable to extreme weather conditions.
Similarly, microgrids are another solution to ease the grid. Microgrids are a set of locally controlled loads and distributed-generation resources that function separately from the centralized grid. They can power a specific location and be used for backup power.
Environmental management can provide utility companies to protect against extreme, unforeseen weather. In 2015, Entergy and other companies restored coastal wetlands in Louisiana to provide storm protection. The environmental management solution provides a way for companies to offset carbon emissions by investing carbon sinks, anything that stores more carbon than it emits, to capture and store carbon dioxide.
Finally, battery storage can provide backup power and allow utilities to meet spikes in power demand. In 2017, Australia installed the world’s largest lithium-ion battery to support the main power grid during peak summer demand. The battery helped integrate renewable energy on the grid, while bringing in $20.7 million in revenues in the first year.
Demand Response provides an opportunity for consumers to partake in stabilizing the grid by reducing or shifting their energy consumption. Demand response efforts include, offering time-based electricity pricing, such as time-of-use rates. Smart home systems and devices can be used to decentralize the grid through demand response by adjusting energy usage when demand is at its highest.
At blip energy, we aim to help individuals, and the grid by developing a cost-effective, sustainable home battery that doesn’t require professional, permanent installation. Our first product blipOne works for renters and residents of multi-unit buildings, as well as homeowners. During extreme weather events, blipOne provides backup resilience in case of a power outage, and can be leveraged by utilities and ISO’s at scale to take household loads off the grid. For example — during a heat wave, a household could run their air conditioner from blipOne’s internal battery. Doing so saves the resident money by using electricity charged at off-peak hours, and helps the grid manage demand.
