GAO: DOE needs better plan for hurricane planning tool development, informing utilities of National Lab resources
According to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is currently working to create planning tools to better address the threat of hurricanes to the grid, but the work could benefit from a better plan and better communication.
With an eye on improving stability, the DOE is looking to make things like metrics to track grid resilience. Adopting such technologies and other efforts could improve grid resilience and allow for more rapid recovery from severe weather incidents — an increasing problem in recent years.
Utilities have pushed forward in that area since 2012, through investments in storm hardening measures, the adoption of new technologies for greater operational capacity and restoration capability, participation in mutual aid programs and training exercises with fellow utilities, along with the adoption of technologies to enhance monitoring and communication capabilities. Yet, according to GAO, at the same time, they have been uneasy justifying such investments to gain regulatory approval, especially since some utilities have limited resources for it.
Ideally, this would be where the DOE and other federal agencies would step up. However, GAO noted that funding from the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are limited to publicly owned utilities and state, tribal, and local governments. The DOE does not provide direct funding at all for grid resilience improvements. It offers technical assistance and research and collaboration efforts through its National Laboratories and plans to create the aforementioned planning tools.
Ironically, these planning tools’ development has no plan to guide them. GAO noted this does not help utilities justify costs of investment. The lack of a formal mechanism for DOE to inform those utilities about the National Labs’ efforts doesn’t help.
As a result, GAO recommended the Secretary of Energy create a plan to guide tool development efforts, complete with timeframes. It also urged steps to leverage the National Labs’ emerging grid resilience efforts and technologies by developing a formal communication mechanism with utilities.
