Resilience and Critical Power System Infrastructure : Lessons Learned from Natural Disasters and Future Research Needs
Resilience against infrastructure failure is essential for ensuring the health and safety of communities during and following natural hazard situations. Understanding how natural hazards impact society in terms of economic cost, recovery time, and...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/245911560800329681/Resilience-and-Critical-Power-System-Infrastructure-Lessons-Learned-from-Natural-Disasters-and-Future-Research-Needs http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31920 |
| Summary: | Resilience against infrastructure
failure is essential for ensuring the health and safety of
communities during and following natural hazard situations.
Understanding how natural hazards impact society in terms of
economic cost, recovery time, and damages to critical
infrastructure is essential for developing robust approaches
to increasing resilience. Identifying specific
vulnerabilities allows for better communication, planning,
and situation-specific interventions. This is particularly
relevant in areas recovering from a natural hazard that have
the opportunity to build back their infrastructure, and for
those currently planning infrastructure expansions. This
study considers recent hurricanes, earthquakes, droughts,
heat waves, extreme wind and rainfall events, ice and
thunder storms as well as wildfires. For many of these, data
are available for the same type of hazard in different
geographies which provides information not only on specific
vulnerabilities, but whether the impacts are location
dependent. Where available, specific design considerations,
cost information for repairs, and the recommendations for
'building back better' are presented. Above-ground
transmission systems were the most commonly affected power
system component, with fuel and maintenance supply chains
representing a major vulnerability for isolated regions and
islands. Generation systems were most commonly affected when
a hazard exceeded design limits, particularly in relation to
water temperature or wind speeds. Institutional capabilities
are important throughout the sector. In all case studies
analyzed, the design standards of the infrastructure asset,
and the ongoing maintenance of assets and the organized
response (or lack of) has major implications for the
performance of the electricity grid. |
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