Generation Reserves: The Grid Security Question

A cost-benefit study shows the value of adding synchronized generating reserves to prevent blackouts on the scale of Aug.14.

If nothing else, the blackout of Aug. 14 showed just how physically vulnerable the electric transmission network has become to problems that begin at a very localized level. That vulnerability stems in part of the greater volume of long-distance transactions imposed on the grid by today's power industry.

But the blackout also revealed a greater truth, one that can be spelled out in economic terms. Considering the huge social cost of such events, it should be worth our while to consider virtually any investment of a reasonable scale that might provide us a fair degree of security against a repeat occurrence.

And if that investment could take the form of a simple addition to the supply of generation-rather than the more costly and politically more complicated alternative of adding transmission lines-then so much the better.

As it happens, that turns out to be precisely the case-that judicious and targeted additions of generation reserves, synchronized with the grid for easy availability, could have turned things around in the Midwest on Aug. 14, according to the findings of a study conducted by my firm.