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Hurricane Harvey’s impact on Texas’ energy infrastructure was significant, to say the least. Roughly 300,000 customers lost power during the storm’s peak impact, and while the region’s three main utilities worked around the clock to restore service, they expect rural areas to remain out of service for weeks. Two major transmission lines and about 7,500 MW of baseload generation capacity, enough to serve around 375,000 homes, were still out of service as of September 5th.
This threat of extreme weather disrupting service is even more significant with Hurricane Irma, which is the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean. In Puerto Rico, more than 1 million residents lost power when the storm hit, and officials warned blackouts could last for months on parts of the island. On the mainland U.S., Florida Power & Light is warning its five million customers “to prepare for potentially prolonged power outages” across half of the state.
Long-distance power transmission lines and critical distribution-level grid infrastructure are both susceptible to extreme winds and flooding, and an outage on one part of the grid can create cascading failures because of each component’s interdependence on the others. These infrastructure outages have major economic impacts, not to mention absolutely devastating effects on residents’ livelihoods.
From an economic development standpoint, these cities would also benefit from the cost-effectiveness of ClearWorld technology. When a city is being revitalized, oftentimes those first few dollars of the budget go toward installing new streetlights to improve public safety. Existing infrastructure can be outfitted with our flexible solar panels, regardless of size or diameter. This practice will greatly reduce installation and maintenance costs.
ClearWorld’s RetroFlex light poles improve safety in public spaces with the ability to provide off-grid lighting for playgrounds and trails.
When rebuilding it is important to think about resiliency. ClearWorld’s InterGrid solution is an energy storage microgrid technology solution. InterGrid is an intelligent solar lighting system, designed to use and store solar power to provide backup power to municipalities and utility companies.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2017/09/08/hurricanes-harvey-and-irma-show-u-s-must-boost-grid-resiliency-energy-storage-is-doing-just-that/2/#62a2214c7717
Extreme Weather
Creates Extreme
Need For Grid Resilience