The Government Needs to Act on Grid Vulnerabilities

As the weather gets more extreme the later in winter the nation gets, the more vulnerabilities that the grid will face in terms of the grid being forced to the brink through use. A recent attack on a few substations shows that there is a growing threat to the grid through acts of violence and vandalism. Unfortunately, the government does not have a clear answer on how to handle this issue.

The other week, 45,000 people in North Carolinalostpower because one person or several people shot at electrical substations in the state. Given that one to two people did all of this damage, a few thousand people doing similar attacks could potentially bring down the grid everywhere. Even without an extensive coordinated attack like this, a few rogue people doing these repeat attacks in new locations could harm energy and people’s lives.

Even just a few locations facing this kind of attack in extreme weather could cost lives. This is a brutal attack that does not need to come from a powerful government, just about anyone could leverage it. Additionally, the decentralized nature of America’s grids means that it is hard to ensure that every substation is protected. There are 79,000 in the US and many do not have enough staff, and are in desolate areas. As a result, many could be targeted in an attack in the middle of the night, and the attacker could get away.

North Carolina had a similar attack about a decade ago, and substations in Oregon and Washington have faced similar attacks in the last few months. Many feel the federal government is not doing enough to secure these substations. Although they are operated locally, the federal government could give grants for security funding, or maybe even establish a regulation around security of these places.

While Congress is more divided than ever, this is not too partisan of an issue. The problem seems to be with attention. While the attacks were unfortunate, hopefully they will prompt Congress to act.

Some power companies want tohike价格order to afford making the infrastructure of the grid be able to withstand more threats. But regulators are trying to prevent some of these increases in prices because many people are already having trouble paying for their energy utilities, especially as cold weather is on the way.

This is a tough balancing act because it is reasonable that companies need more money to handle new challenges, but with choppy economic times, it is tough to ask struggling families to pay more for a necessity.

A writer in North Carolina isarguingthat the attacks and the issues with responding to the attacks is all the more reason that there needs to be a broader distribution in terms of where people get their energy. This would primarily come from renewable energy. The writer specifically argued for smaller sources. It does seem that renewable energy could serve as a way to offset reliance on one source, but this idea of additional smaller sources could create problems, as that just creates more targets for attack. The writer would likely respond that if the sources are so spread out that there is not one source providing more of the energy, then an attack on one does not have much of an impact.

This is a promising idea, but in reality, it would be difficult to immediately have access to all renewable energy sources everywhere. Some locations likely lend themselves more to certain energy sources than others.

Moreover, some arearguingthat the US is creating more risk by doing exactly what the North Carolina writer proposed. That by trying too much to prematurely rely on renewable energy sources that cannot support the grid, the US is letting its grids be pushed to the brink. The reason for this is that fossil energy plants are shutting down, so they are canceled as an energy source, and the new energy sources cannot pick up the slack.

This is a hard balance, as people want to create incentives for new energy sources, yet moving too fast can set energy overall (including renewable energy) back years.

Regardless of who is right, Congress needs to act on these issues.