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Title: Eastern Seaboard Electric Grid Fragility Maps Supporting Persistent Availability

Abstract

Persistently available power transmission can be disrupted by weather causing power outages with economic and social consequences. This research investigated the effects on the national power grid from a specific weather event, Hurricane Irene, that caused approximately 5.7 million customer power outages along the Eastern Seaboard in August of 2011. The objective was to describe the geographic differences in the grid s vulnerability to these events. Individual factors, such as wind speed or precipitation, were correlated with the number of outages to determine the greatest mechanism of power failure in hopes of strengthening the future power grid. The resulting fragility maps not only depicted 18 counties that were less robust than the design-standard robustness model and three counties that were more robust, but also drew new damage contours with correlated wind speeds and county features.

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. ORNL
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
OSTI Identifier:
1055548
Report Number(s):
ORNL/TM-2012/574
DOE Contract Number:  
DE-AC05-00OR22725
Resource Type:
Technical Report
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
Persistent Availability; Power Grid security and Resilience

Citation Formats

Walker, Kimberly A, Weigand, Gilbert G, and Fernandez, Steven J. Eastern Seaboard Electric Grid Fragility Maps Supporting Persistent Availability. United States: N. p., 2012. Web. doi:10.2172/1055548.
Walker, Kimberly A, Weigand, Gilbert G, & Fernandez, Steven J. Eastern Seaboard Electric Grid Fragility Maps Supporting Persistent Availability. United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1055548
Walker, Kimberly A, Weigand, Gilbert G, and Fernandez, Steven J. 2012. "Eastern Seaboard Electric Grid Fragility Maps Supporting Persistent Availability". United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1055548. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1055548.
@article{osti_1055548,
title = {Eastern Seaboard Electric Grid Fragility Maps Supporting Persistent Availability},
author = {Walker, Kimberly A and Weigand, Gilbert G and Fernandez, Steven J},
abstractNote = {Persistently available power transmission can be disrupted by weather causing power outages with economic and social consequences. This research investigated the effects on the national power grid from a specific weather event, Hurricane Irene, that caused approximately 5.7 million customer power outages along the Eastern Seaboard in August of 2011. The objective was to describe the geographic differences in the grid s vulnerability to these events. Individual factors, such as wind speed or precipitation, were correlated with the number of outages to determine the greatest mechanism of power failure in hopes of strengthening the future power grid. The resulting fragility maps not only depicted 18 counties that were less robust than the design-standard robustness model and three counties that were more robust, but also drew new damage contours with correlated wind speeds and county features.},
doi = {10.2172/1055548},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1055548}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2012},
month = {Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2012}
}