A Menu for What Challenges the Grid.

• Author: Hederman, William F.
• Position: Power After Carbon: Building a Clean, Resilient Grid - Book review

Power After Carbon: Building a Clean, Resilient Grid

By Peter Fox-Penner

456 pp.; Harvard University Press, 2020

Power After Carbon is Peter Fox-Penner's second book addressing the challenges of modernizing the electric power grid. His first book on this topic was Smart Power (Island Press, 2010) and it sparked many important discussions regarding the grid, climate change, and utility policy.

Fox-Penner is one of the world's preeminent analysts regarding electric power regulation. In Power After Carbon, he takes on a complex and rapidly changing and challenging policy topic and makes a valiant try at giving it a comprehensive analysis. He examines many important issues that require attention if society elects to accelerate carbon emission reductions through greater electrification of transportation and other end uses for energy. This book provides a useful introduction for diligent novices and a somewhat useful reference work for practitioners of electric power policy.

One of Fox-Penner's major conclusions is that the bulk power electric grid--what he calls the "Big Grid"--will be an essential part of post-carbon power systems. This contrasts with many sustainable-electricity proponents who anticipate decentralized renewable power replacing the grid. His reasons for seeing no rapid "euthanasia" for the Big Grid are convincing. He does, though, note that it is not quite "case closed" for a continuation of the grid, mentioning that, in considering downsides from new grid architectures, reliability may decline for bigger grids.

Decentralized options, whether renewable generation or demand-response technology, can in many circumstances create new cyber vulnerabilities. For decentralization to function well, highly connected control systems are necessary. Control systems are especially vulnerable to sophisticated cyberattacks. Moreover, malevolent cyber actors include highly capable adversaries consisting of hostile nation states and corporate criminals working independently or as mercenaries for nation states.

When costs are competitive, the big grid/small grid conundrum ultimately is a tradeoff between dangers from cascading failure for the Big Grid or from massive targeted hacking of small grids.

Another critically important element of centralized versus decentralized design decisions is sunk cost. In areas without a grid, primarily Africa, simple electric uses (e.g., lighting, phone recharge, fans, and limited refrigeration) may be served most economically with decentralized "bottom up" resources such as low-head hydropower, photovoltaics, or wind. As demands grow, however, storage and small grid buildouts may become necessary or economical. If, however, demands grow near Big Grid assets, being able to take advantage of hardware and software that has already been paid for on the existing grid can shift many advantages toward using the grid network's transmission lines and generators as well as storage.

Grid threats / Fox-Penner spends considerable time explaining some of the major threats to the Big Grid (e.g., wind, fire, water, and cyber). He explains how changes in the global climate can adversely affect the grid (for example, outages and large-loss events), and some of the promising workarounds (for example self-healing grids). Much of the increase in financial losses from environmental catastrophes have come because of continued investment in inappropriate, dangerous, and vulnerable areas. Think of the real estate burned in remote...