This document discusses the resilience of electricity transmission grids in the face of climate change and increasing extreme weather events. It outlines several drivers that are influencing grid development over the next decades, including slow demand growth, high costs of building new lines, and tight capacity margins. Climate change is expected to increase the likelihood of weather-related outages and potential migrations that could impact demand. The document evaluates four pillars of grid resilience: redundant links, isolating outages, restoring services, and repairing/rebuilding infrastructure. It also discusses challenges to expanding grids to improve resilience.

1. Paula Díaz and Oscar van Vliet
IDRiM
Isfahan, 03.10.2016
Resilience of Electricity Transmission grids

2. ▪ Discuss some drivers for change in
electricity grids that influence the
development of grid over the next
decades
▪ Focus on how the drivers become
more important in the face of
climate change and an increase in
extreme weather events
▪ Update to existing work on
adaptation of electricity
infrastructure (e.g. Sieber (née
Schulz) 2011)
Objective
HV Power line in France
after a storm in 2009
Source: http://www.gettyimages.pt

3. ▪ Total demand is growing slowly, by ~0.5% per year (Eurostat)
▪ Building new lines is expensive
▪ Building new lines is time consuming
▪ The grid is trimmed for financial efficiency
General trends in electricity demand
Lower
transmission
capacity
margins

4. ▪ As production of renewables increases, transmission grid will
move more electricity further away
▪ Increasing likelihood of climate-induced migrations, causing:
▪ Transmission system operators (TSOs) will pay reparations
in some places with damaged infrastructure and shortage
of clients
▪ Growing demand for electricity from impoverished migrants
in others places
Climate-induced trends in electricity demand

5. ▪ Approx. half of past outages are due to weather
Vulnerability of the grid to climate change and
natural hazards
Source: E.ON, via Boston, 2013
▪ Future climate with more
extreme events will lead to
a correspondingly larger
number and more
extensive outages
(Ward 2013).

6. 13-year analysis of weather outages in Finland
▪ Successfully operation of the grid in extreme circumstances

7. ▪ Redundant links
▪ Isolate outages
▪ Restore services
▪ Repair & rebuild infrastructure
Resilience seems to conflict with most of the current grid trend
Resilience in electricity networks
4
Pillars

8. Concept: Multiple ways of getting to each destination
▪ Transmission grids operate with an n-1 redundancy (or more)
▪ Extra corridors will be exposed to the same weather events
by geographic proximity à risk of concurrent failures
1. Redundant links

9. Concept: sacrifice part to save the whole
▪ Avoid natural hazards turning into cascade failures
▪ How to build a decentralised and integrated grid?
Challenges: Complexity
▪ Less ‘network mass’ for demand shifts
▪ Expensive additional equipment
▪ Possible new power lines
2. Isolate outages

10. Concept: Get electricity flowing again as soon as possible
▪ Duration matters: 15 second is a glitch, 15 minutes is usually
fine, 15 hours is bad, 5 days can be lethal
▪ Impact depends on place, season and service
Challenges: Logistics, funding
▪ How to have sufficient equipment (generators, …) available?
Climate change: If outages will become more prevalent
▪ May help in mobilising more resources for disaster
management
▪ Sparsely populated areas have lower priority in response
3. Restore services

11. Concept: Get electricity flowing for the long term
▪ TSO reroutes power and/or rebuilds network
Challenges: Logistics and resources
▪ Grid equipment is typically specialised and large, and some is
custom-built.
▪ Large transformers are rare or unique, leads to long delays
▪ If we standardise parts, how to avoid ‘monoculture’ risks?
4. Repair & rebuild infrastructure

12. Repair & rebuild infrastructure
Source: www.alamy.com
Source: www.tdworld.com

13. ▪ The trends in electricity production
▪ Demand under climate change conditions
▪ Improvement of grid resilience
Challenges:
▪ Public acceptance
▪ Permit procedures in the EU often take 6-7 years (up to 20)
▪ ENTSO-E plans 10 years ahead, but national TSO implement
▪ Expert-driven processes, often low on the Arnstein ladder
Grid Expansion
Require
new
power lines

14. ▪ Physically adapting the grid to shifting centres of demand and
supply is not a matter solely for technocrats and engineers
▪ Grid vulnerability can be reduced by sharing best practices
▪ Efforts by scientists and some TSOs to do participatory
processes had encouraging results
▪ Adapting the grid to mitigation and effects of climate change
is primarily a challenge of management and communication
Conclusions

15. Thank you
Paula Díaz
Paula.diaz@usys.ethz.ch
This research project is part of the National Research Programme "Energy Turnaround" (NRP 70) of the Swiss
National Science Foundation (SNSF). Further information on the National Research Programme can be found at
www.nrp70.ch.