Extreme Heat, Wildfires, and Space Weather? Organizational Adaptation to Multi-Hazard Risks in the Power Grid

• In Event: Innovation and Risk in the Power Grid

Abstract

Power grids are increasingly under strain from natural hazards, such as extreme heat, wildfires, and space weather. While organizations responsible for grid planning and operations routinely respond to these hazards, they are less prepared for multi-hazard events that affect the power grid directly or disrupt other systems, such as fuel or communications networks. For example, current risk maps that account for multiple hazards and their interactions are different than single hazard maps. Only 21% of the properties within the recent Eaton Fire perimeter were in the “very high” fire hazard severity zone. More advanced models identified much larger risk zones, but these more complex approaches were not yet integrated into practices and decision-making.

This paper examines how regulators, state and local agencies, public utilities, and regional governance organizations involved in grid planning and operations are adapting to address multi-hazard risks. We pay particular attention to the competing policy priorities negotiated across multiple centers of authority, the tensions in managing different types of risks, and the ability to characterize multi-hazard interactions. Electricity sector actors are developing highly technical models to manage high-frequency, high-consequence risks, such as wildfires, and low-frequency, high-consequence risks, such as geomagnetic disturbances (GMDs), that can induce currents in transmission lines that damage equipment. Yet, regulators, planners, and operators are just beginning to consider how novel data and technical approaches can be integrated into decision-making practices and complex governance arrangements.

Drawing on document analysis, focus groups, and semi-structured interviews with organizations in California and across the Western United States, this paper examines how organizations are adapting from legacy single-hazard reliability planning approaches to multi-hazard risk analysis. Preliminary findings show that this transition involves changes in operational practices, the development of new knowledge systems for interpreting hazards, coordination across fragmented governance structures, and the management of competing organizational priorities. The results inform the need for and implementation of new tools, procedures, and policies to better evaluate and make decisions around multi-hazard risks. These findings also provide insight into how organizations can adapt to multi-hazard risks in regulatory and stakeholder-driven environments where such risks remain a highly novel problem.

Author

• Calvin Spanbauer, Princeton University
  Presenting Author