Fixing The Electric Grid

[Annie]

Interesting:

Power to the People: 7 Ways to Fix the Grid, Now

Power to the People: 7 Ways to Fix the Grid, Now
By Brendan I. Koerner 03.23.09

7 WAYS TO FIX THE GRID, NOW:
-Generate Electricity Everywhere
- Deliver Clean Energy to Distant Cities
- Store Power in Super Batteries
- Monitor the Electrons in Real Time
-Trade Electricity Like Pork Bellies
- Think Negawatts, Not Megawatts
- Make Conservation Simple (and Easy)

Filthy coal-fired power plants spew carbon into the air. A mish-mash of 9,200 generators streams vital electrons along 300,000 miles of aging, inefficient transmission lines and one untrimmed tree in the wrong place could plunge a quarter of the country into darkness. This is our electric grid. A whopping 40 percent of all the energy used in the US—be it oil, gas, wind, or solar—is converted into electrons that travel over these wires. Any attempt at energy reform must begin here.

But this keystone of our 21st-century economy has yet to advance much beyond its 19th-century roots. Considering how wasteful, unresponsive, and just plain dumb the grid is, it isn't surprising that outages—which have been increasing steadily over the past quarter century—cost us $150 billion a year. The real shock is that the damn thing works at all.

Now consider what we will ask the grid to handle in the near future: Demand for electricity is expected to increase by as much as 40 percent in the next two decades—more than twice the population growth rate. To meet that need, we will have to generate an additional 214 gigawatts, a feat that would require the construction of more than 357 large coal plants. We also want to plug in dozens, if not hundreds, of gigawatts of wind and solar power harvested from the most remote corners of the country. And we will want to recharge millions of electric vehicles every night, without fail.

That is why we must fix the grid—reinvent it to be reliable, efficient, responsive, and smart. Washington is already on the case: President Obama has called a new energy agenda "absolutely critical to our economic future," and his stimulus package directs more than $40 billion toward that goal—the largest single infusion of government capital to the energy sector in US history, more than half of which will go to grid-related projects. In the short term, this bonanza aims simply to create jobs. But in the long term, it lays the groundwork for the grid of the future. (About $400 million will go to fund ARPA-E, a sort of Darpa for energy research.) And this is just the beginning: Congress is considering additional legislation in the hope of remaking our energy infrastructure....

 

[waltky]

Dat's why Granny keeps her flashlight handy - so she can see inna dark...

Security holes in power grid have federal officials scrambling
April 16, 2014: WASHINGTON — Adam Crain assumed that tapping into the computer networks used by power companies to keep electricity zipping through transmission lines would be nearly impossible in these days of heightened vigilance over cybersecurity. To his surprise, it was startlingly easy.

When Crain, the owner of a small tech firm in Raleigh, N.C., shared the discovery with beleaguered utility security officials, the Homeland Security Department began sending alerts to power grid operators, advising them to upgrade their software. The alerts haven’t stopped because Crain keeps finding new security holes he can exploit. “There are a lot of people going through various stages of denial” about how easily terrorists — or anyone — could disrupt the power grid, he said. “If I could write a tool that does this, you can be sure a nation state or someone with more resources could.”

In Congress, the vulnerability of the power grid has emerged as among the most pressing domestic security concerns. It is also among the most vexing. At times, lawmakers appear to be working at cross purposes. Some want to empower regulators to force specific security upgrades at utilities. Others are attacking whistleblowers and the media, demanding an investigation into disclosures of how easily the country’s power grid could be shut down. The magnitude of the problem is underscored by insurance giant Lloyds of London, whose appraisers have been making visits lately to power companies seeking protection against the risk of cyberattack. Their take-away: Security at about half the companies they visit is too weak for Lloyds to offer a policy. “When Lloyds won’t insure you, you know you’ve got a problem,” said Patrick Miller, founder of the Energy Sector Security Consortium, a Washington-based nonprofit that advocates for tougher cybersecurity measures for the electricity industry.

The challenges are compounded by lingering tensions between federal law enforcement and the industry. Each accuses the other of being territorial and evasive, neglecting to share confidential incident reports, intelligence analyses and other sensitive data. Power companies, eager to keep regulators at bay, find themselves in a bind. They need to show quickly that they are equipped to protect the grid against outside attacks. They warn the grid is so massive, complicated and fragile that any tinkering needs to remain the responsibility of those who operate it day to day, not well-intentioned but inexperienced federal regulators. “The notion of … a single government agency giving an order to direct changes in the grid is extremely dangerous,” said Gerry Cauley, chief executive of the North American Electric Reliability Corp., the quasi-governmental organization through which utilities manage the power grid.

Even security experts who criticize Cauley’s organization for moving too slowly agree his argument has merit. The problem, said Scott White, a security technology scholar at Drexel University in Philadelphia, is that “you are basically dealing with these monopolies that are determining for themselves which expenditures are a priority. Security has not generally been one.” Utilities deny they’ve ignored the problem, pointing to the billions of dollars they say they’ve spent to upgrade outdated computer systems and close security holes. They are signing contracts with security firms like Booz Allen Hamilton to investigate such things as to how to keep potentially mischievous devices out of the equipment they buy, often from foreign suppliers. The security firms help clients sift through reams of confidential intelligence provided by federal agencies. They simulate cyberattacks. “It is the equivalent of war gaming, like the military does,” said Steve Senterfit, vice president of commercial energy at Booz Allen Hamilton.

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