Stronger Power : Improving Power Sector Resilience to Natural Hazards
The power sector is both highly vulnerable to natural hazards and a priority for any country'srecovery and reconstruction. After Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017, most of the power gridwas down. One year and tens of billions of dollars l...
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/200771560790885170/Stronger-Power-Improving-Power-Sector-Resilience-to-Natural-Hazards http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31910 |
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okr-10986-319102021-05-25T09:24:57Z Stronger Power : Improving Power Sector Resilience to Natural Hazards Nicolas, Claire Rentschler, Jun Potter van Loon, Albertine Oguah, Sam Schweikert, Amy Deinert, Mark Koks, Elco Arderne, Christopher Cubas, Diana Li, Jie Ichikawa, Eriko POWER SECTOR ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE NATURAL DISASTER DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT THERMAL POWER NUCLEAR POWER HYDROPOWER ENERGY TRANSMISSION POWER GRID CLIMATE CHANGE RESILIENT INFRASTRUCTURE DISASTER PREPAREDNESS The power sector is both highly vulnerable to natural hazards and a priority for any country'srecovery and reconstruction. After Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017, most of the power gridwas down. One year and tens of billions of dollars later some customers were yet to be reconnected to the main grid. This type of long and widespread power outage has major consequences on people's health and well-being, for instance through lacking access to refrigeration for food and medicine, and on the ability of firms to produce and provide people with goods, services, jobs, and income. In most countries, the power system is designed to cope with high-frequency but relatively low impact events. Low-frequency, high-impact events – such as many natural disasters – are rarely considered fully, and the implementation of planned management measures is often patchy. Furthermore, the power system is a special kind of infrastructure due to the heterogeneity of the generation assets and its wide spatial distribution. The latter means that power systems are often exposed to natural hazards and sometimes to more than one hazard, leading to high repair costs when disasters strike. This paper, prepared as a sectoral note for the Lifelines report on infrastructure resilience, investigates the vulnerability of the power system to natural hazards and climate change, and provides recommendations to increase its resilience. It first describes how power outages are often the consequence of natural disasters and outlines the main vulnerabilities of the power sector. It then proposes a range of approaches and solutions for building a more resilient power sector – from increased robustness to greater flexibility – showing that the additional cost of resilience is not high if resources are well spent. Finally, it describes how emergency preparedness and disaster recovery encompass not only technical aspects, like asset strengthening or criticality analysis, but also "softer" skills, like governance, regulatory or capacity building, and education. 2019-06-19T20:31:41Z 2019-06-19T20:31:41Z 2019-06 Report http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/200771560790885170/Stronger-Power-Improving-Power-Sector-Resilience-to-Natural-Hazards http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31910 English Background paper for Lifelines; CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Economic & Sector Work Economic & Sector Work :: Other Infrastructure Study |
| repository_type |
Digital Repository |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
Digital Repositories |
| building |
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
| collection |
World Bank |
| language |
English |
| topic |
POWER SECTOR ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE NATURAL DISASTER DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT THERMAL POWER NUCLEAR POWER HYDROPOWER ENERGY TRANSMISSION POWER GRID CLIMATE CHANGE RESILIENT INFRASTRUCTURE DISASTER PREPAREDNESS |
| spellingShingle |
POWER SECTOR ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE NATURAL DISASTER DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT THERMAL POWER NUCLEAR POWER HYDROPOWER ENERGY TRANSMISSION POWER GRID CLIMATE CHANGE RESILIENT INFRASTRUCTURE DISASTER PREPAREDNESS Nicolas, Claire Rentschler, Jun Potter van Loon, Albertine Oguah, Sam Schweikert, Amy Deinert, Mark Koks, Elco Arderne, Christopher Cubas, Diana Li, Jie Ichikawa, Eriko Stronger Power : Improving Power Sector Resilience to Natural Hazards |
| relation |
Background paper for Lifelines; |
| description |
The power sector is both highly
vulnerable to natural hazards and a priority for any
country'srecovery and reconstruction. After Hurricane
Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017, most of the power gridwas
down. One year and tens of billions of dollars later some
customers were yet to be reconnected to the main grid. This
type of long and widespread power outage has major
consequences on people's health and well-being, for
instance through lacking access to refrigeration for food
and medicine, and on the ability of firms to produce and
provide people with goods, services, jobs, and income. In
most countries, the power system is designed to cope with
high-frequency but relatively low impact events.
Low-frequency, high-impact events – such as many natural
disasters – are rarely considered fully, and the
implementation of planned management measures is often
patchy. Furthermore, the power system is a special kind of
infrastructure due to the heterogeneity of the generation
assets and its wide spatial distribution. The latter means
that power systems are often exposed to natural hazards and
sometimes to more than one hazard, leading to high repair
costs when disasters strike. This paper, prepared as a
sectoral note for the Lifelines report on infrastructure
resilience, investigates the vulnerability of the power
system to natural hazards and climate change, and provides
recommendations to increase its resilience. It first
describes how power outages are often the consequence of
natural disasters and outlines the main vulnerabilities of
the power sector. It then proposes a range of approaches and
solutions for building a more resilient power sector – from
increased robustness to greater flexibility – showing that
the additional cost of resilience is not high if resources
are well spent. Finally, it describes how emergency
preparedness and disaster recovery encompass not only
technical aspects, like asset strengthening or criticality
analysis, but also "softer" skills, like
governance, regulatory or capacity building, and education. |
| format |
Report |
| author |
Nicolas, Claire Rentschler, Jun Potter van Loon, Albertine Oguah, Sam Schweikert, Amy Deinert, Mark Koks, Elco Arderne, Christopher Cubas, Diana Li, Jie Ichikawa, Eriko |
| author_facet |
Nicolas, Claire Rentschler, Jun Potter van Loon, Albertine Oguah, Sam Schweikert, Amy Deinert, Mark Koks, Elco Arderne, Christopher Cubas, Diana Li, Jie Ichikawa, Eriko |
| author_sort |
Nicolas, Claire |
| title |
Stronger Power : Improving Power Sector Resilience to Natural Hazards |
| title_short |
Stronger Power : Improving Power Sector Resilience to Natural Hazards |
| title_full |
Stronger Power : Improving Power Sector Resilience to Natural Hazards |
| title_fullStr |
Stronger Power : Improving Power Sector Resilience to Natural Hazards |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Stronger Power : Improving Power Sector Resilience to Natural Hazards |
| title_sort |
stronger power : improving power sector resilience to natural hazards |
| publisher |
World Bank, Washington, DC |
| publishDate |
2019 |
| url |
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/200771560790885170/Stronger-Power-Improving-Power-Sector-Resilience-to-Natural-Hazards http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31910 |
| _version_ |
1764475344768729088 |