Power outages harm biz con—aff solves by guaranteeing new jobs to update power grids

Further, access to healthcare is limited during power outages. People with elevated health needs requiring medical equipment, such as those using at home ventilators, are some of the most vulnerable when the power goes out. Pregnant women face an increased risk of complications during outages, with low-income, uninsured individuals hit the hardest. In the aftermath of outages, those who can afford them often purchase batteries or backup fossil fuel generators which worsen local air pollution during outages. Low-income families and those who rent housing generally have a lower capacity to prepare for the next power outage and the physical and emotional strain of surviving an environmental disaster can persist for decades.

Power outages cost U.S. businesses, on average, about $150 billion per year. During Winter Storm Uri, Samsung’s giant microchip factory in Austin was forced to shut down for over a month, leading to tens of millions of dollars of economic loses. The broader economic impact of the storms of February 2021 has been estimated at upwards of $300 billion.  Outages lead to increased insurance claims, diminished business confidence, and reduced growth. Between 2003 and 2012, estimates put the cost of weather-related outages on the U.S. economy between $18 billion and $33 billion per year.

What Recommendations Could the Federal Government Consider?

Much of the U.S. regulatory framework for the electricity sector is overseen by state legislatures and public utility or service commissions. However, the federal government can take steps to support a more reliable and affordable electricity sector as climate-change-related disasters are poised to increase. As my former colleague John MacWilliams stated in his testimony in 2020 before the before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, congressional action has been taken before in the wake of reliability issues. For example, after the Northeast Blackout of 2003, Congress enacted the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which both strengthened the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) reliability requirements and granted the FERC greater ability to levy penalties for non-compliance with those standards. More recently, Congress provided leadership in supporting critical investment in clean energy innovation and infrastructure deployment with the Energy Act of 2020, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act. 

Today, Congress has the opportunity to provide the leadership to ensure that a future electricity grid can support the delivery of reliable, affordable, and clean electricity to households and businesses around the country. There are a number of actions that the federal government could consider taking across the entire electricity sector outside of policy changes to power supply. New policies to improve the transmission grid and demand-side resources are crucial to ensuring that future Americans access power to support their lives and livelihoods.

First, Congress could consider strengthening communication networks to more effectively provide information to those affected by blackouts. Information such as the expected duration of a blackout and how to stay safe are critical to protecting human health and minimizing damage from reliability events. This critical information could include: where to access support services if safely sheltering in place is not an option; what to do to protect infrastructure in a person’s home; and other emergency-related information (e.g., boil water notices). While the first goal should be to minimize the frequency and duration of blackouts, these networks can help to minimize damage when blackouts occur.

Second, Congress could consider strengthening requirements for risk assessment and mitigation planning in power sector planning processes. Ideally, this policy would require power sector planning processes to consider changing climatic conditions (e.g., temperature and rainfall patterns) and increased electrification of the United States economy. For example, an ongoing partnership between the New York Power Authority (NYPA) and Argonne National Laboratory is leveraging currently available climate and infrastructure modeling techniques to help utilities better assess how extreme weather and other hazards may affect their assets and business. These modeling techniques can also help utilities understand how demand patterns might change given changing weather patterns. These assessments – along with lessons learned from previous reliability events – can directly feed into risk mitigation plans to help ensure a more reliable and affordable electricity system in the midst of an already changing climate. Planning and risk mitigation processes should extend beyond the electricity infrastructure and include the fuel delivery infrastructure as well.

Third, Congress could consider reforming environmental review and permitting processes for projects across the entire electricity sector (e.g., supply, transmission grid). The amount of investment that is needed across the electricity sector in the United States to support a reliable and affordable electricity supply will be substantial over the next few decades.  But investors that want to pursue energy infrastructure projects are currently hindered by slow and uncertain environmental review and permitting processes. 

Recent congressional actions supporting critical investments in clean energy infrastructure deployment are encouraging, but without a clear process to enable permitting and siting of infrastructure projects, increased uncertainty surrounding decision timelines hinders progress, increases costs, and threatens the viability of needed projects. Simply put, without updating and clarifying these processes, the investment we need will not happen.

Existing authorities are not ideally suited to support these infrastructure investments. The Center on Global Energy Policy has previously published work in partnership with New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity on how to increase investment in the transmission grid using existing authorities. However, the authors highlighted in that publication, existing authorities are limited and require complex coordination amongst different agencies. Passing legislation that would streamline environmental review and permitting process timelines is crucial given the speed and scale of infrastructure investment needed to support a reliable, affordable, and clean electricity sector.