Climate transition has a clear action plan: “electrify everything.” This means replacing natural gas for residential heating and cooking with electricity and switching from internal combustion engines (ICEs) to electric vehicles (EVs).
In spite of a clear strategy, there is a problem. With total dependence on electricity, how would households deal with power outages due to snow and windstorms, hurricanes, and wildfires? Are they now expected to install generators and battery backups? Given the relatively high costs of backups, low-income households will probably not be able to afford them. For these households, power outages might mean living in darkness and without heat.
Could households and communities think of a collective response to reduce outage risks? If outages are due to downed lines, the grid could be “hardened” (by undergrounding lines, structural upgrading, flood or fire protection) so that it functions normally in extreme weather events. It is true this will cost money but might households support a monthly charge on electricity bills (or new bond levies) so that utilities (cities) can invest in grid hardening?
Washington state residents are probably asking this question as they deal with the bomb cyclone that has caused electricity outages in over half a million homes. Grid hardening is being discussed in other states as well in response to hurricanes, tropical cyclones, snow storms, and wildfires.
Grid is the Weak Link in Climate Transition
Climate transition faces three challenges: (1) generating clean (zero emission) electricity, (2) moving electricity from generation points to consumption centers, and (3) switching from fossil fuels to electricity in transportation and buildings.
Most policy efforts tend to be directed toward generating clean electricity. This is why renewable energy is the banner item in climate discussions. There is also a substantial push to replace gas with electricity at the consumption level via EV policies and discouraging/banning gas use in buildings.
Transmission/distribution issues are neglected in climate discussions, which is unfortunate because, without a reliable way to move electricity, energy decarbonization will be in trouble. Thus, climate transition requires massive investment in new high voltage transmission lines (where there is a significant national level shortfall), intra-regional and local distribution grids along with hardening the grid so that it can withstand punishment from extreme weather events, which are predicted to become more severe and frequent.
Without a resilient grid, electricity outages could diminish public support for decarbonization. Citizens might wonder about the wisdom of moving away from natural gas in buildings, whose pipelines tend to be less vulnerable to extreme events (cold spells seem to be an exception). The same logic might hold for the transportation sector as EVs begin to account for a large share of the fleet.
Enhancing Grid Resilience
Climate policy should not become associated with halted mobility, dark and cold buildings, and spoiled food in refrigerators. An important collective (as opposed to household) level response to outages is to strengthen grid resilience via undergrounding power lines.
Policymakers recognize this challenge. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) website notes: “The electric power distribution system in the U.S. has over 5.5 million line-miles with over 180 million power poles, all of which are susceptible to damage by weather and its effects, and account for a majority of power outages in the country each year. Climate-change fueled extreme weather events are increasing the frequency and intensity of power outages across the U.S., harming communities and disrupting livelihoods. Undergrounding power lines is a proven way of improving the system reliability for both transmission and distribution grids as weather events are less likely to interfere with systems that are protected below ground.”
Undergrounding has its downside as well. Buried lines are difficult to access and repair. They are more expensive to install compared to overhead lines. This is why some suggest that undergrounding could probably be limited to areas where the terrain is more favorable and outages are frequent and long. The U.S. Energy Information Agency provides state level data on average annual electricity disruption experienced by electricity customers and the frequency of these disruptions. This can allow for careful targeting of expensive undergrounding efforts.
How to finance undergrounding? The federal government has earmarked $10.5 billion under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships. Grid resilience is an important issue in some states such as California and Florida. But grid hardening does not seem to have high priority in Washington state, a climate leader. In its 2022 report to the Governor, the Transmission Corridors Work Group of the Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council highlights the need for upgrading the existing transmission infrastructure. While it mentions reliability standards, the report does not identify the need for grid hardening. Moreover, we do not find significant allocations in other climate initiatives (independent of federal funding) for undergrounding power lines, including the cap-and-invest system which brings in annual revenue of more than $1 billion.
Is Grid Resilience a Local Issue Then?
Grid resilience has an important local component involving cities and local utilities. Indeed, Puget Sound Energy, the major utility of Washington state, notes: “PSE can build transmission lines underground. However, doing so requires cost sharing between PSE and the local community that requests it. That’s because undergrounding is typically considered a local benefit, and it costs significantly more to build a power line underground. As a result, it is up to the local community to decide whether to invest in an underground line.”
Thus, in some states, the bulk of undergrounding costs will need to be borne either by cities (which will probably finance it via bond levies) or by consumers as utilities pass the costs on to them via rate hikes. Initial evidence suggests that consumers are ready to support these efforts. In a recent paper, we asked California residents about their willingness to pay $30 per month for burying electricity lines. We found a relatively high level of willingness (5.2 on a 1-7 scale). This provides some confidence for utilities to outline their undergrounding plans and rate hike proposals to invite feedback from customers and stakeholders. Since rate hikes are regulated by state-level bodies and regulatory approvals take time, utilities should not delay putting out rate hike proposals. The increased frequency of hurricanes, storms, wildfires, and now cyclone bombs should hopefully fast-track policy discussions on grid resilience.
