American power grids suffer thousands of reported “power interruptions” every year, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers’ most recent (2017) published Report Card on power—a 2021 Report Card will be published March 3. It should be kept in mind that the same large environmentalist organizations which clamor for interruptible power sources, batteries and “smart grids,” actually oppose attempts to construct new high-voltage transmission lines, or fund local groups to oppose them with lawsuits and direct actions, etc. Most recently a long-planned new high-voltage line running through the Mid-Atlantic states from southwest to northeast and north into New York, was abandoned last year after lawsuits blocked it from crossing the Shenandoah River at any point.
So the ASCE says: “Some parts of the U.S. electric grid predate the turn of the 20th century. Most T&D [transmission and distribution] lines were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s with a 50-year life expectancy, and were not originally engineered to meet today’s demand, nor severe weather events. With more than 640,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines across the three interconnected electric transmission grids—the Eastern Interconnection, Western Interconnection, and Texas Interconnection—the lower 48 states’ power grid is at full capacity, with many lines operating well beyond their design. The resulting congestion raises concerns with distribution, reliability, and cost of service, producing constraints for delivering power from remote generation sites, specifically from renewable sources, to consumers. Often a single line cannot be taken out of service to perform maintenance as it will overload other interconnected lines in operation…. As a result of aging infrastructure, severe weather events, and attacks and vandalism, in 2015 Americans experienced a reported 3,571 total outages, with an average duration of 49 minutes.”
