While energy resilience will not solve a worldwide pandemic or extinguish a wildfire, it is vital to enabling our families, communities, and companies to work, study, and live safely.
It’s heartbreaking to observe how climate catastrophes are hitting millions of people more frequently. Natural calamities demonstrate that the climate concerns we face are not abstract matters. Our global energy supply and infrastructure must be able to endure harsh weather now more than ever. Our own lives and livelihoods are at stake.
Although our worldwide energy supply and infrastructure are evolving to meet the problems of the future, a few things are certain:
- Power, no matter how it is produced, is necessary for our food supply, healthcare requirements, and shelter.
- Despite catastrophic weather conditions, our infrastructure must be resilient so that it will still go on.
- The energy transition is happening at a breakneck pace.
How resilient do we need to be?
Resilience is about keeping our homes, communities, companies, and organizations running. And it necessitates planning. The difficulty is predicting what our electrical infrastructure must endure. How much insurance is needed?
Storms, wildfires, and extreme weather conditions have wreaked havoc on towns already dealing with COVID-19. It’s one thing to work and learn at home while the lights are turned on. When it isn’t, it’s a very different story.
Balancing conflicting goals like dependability, sustainability, and the cost is part of the difficulty of establishing a more resilient energy supply and infrastructure.
Energy transition and resilience are inseparable.
The capacity to recover swiftly is defined as resilience. It’s a type of toughness forged by preparation — the capacity to respond to change with flexibility, suppleness, and quickness. And it necessitates that we plan for the unexpected, especially when unique circumstances grow more prevalent.
The emphasis on resilience in the energy sector is not new. Communities, governments, corporations, and utilities have worked tirelessly to ensure that our energy supply and infrastructure are resilient, even under the most trying situations.
Eaton understands the importance of this focus on resilience since they have been assisting in making energy infrastructure resilient. They have approached the energy shift with an Everything as a Grid mindset. They have also been safely adding renewables, storage, and electric vehicle infrastructure for their clients and facilities for years.
Renewables are critical for both large and small operations. Traditional energy consumers can develop their energy and rely less on the electric grid with a more dispersed energy supply. With technologies like solar power centers, wi-fi smart gadgets, and intelligent circuit protection, the Home as a Grid approach will help expedite a low-carbon future.
Clients benefit from Eaton‘s unique ability to enhance resilience both behind and in front of the meter. Their work is visible as they assist utilities like Southern California Edison with renewable integration or develop more flexible power systems to boost a hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU) capacity.
Eaton is a leader in designing microgrids for customers at their own manufacturing and education facilities. They just announced an initiative to install a microgrid at our Puerto Rico manufacturing location to enable more sustainable and resilient electricity. The solar and energy storage project allows them to distribute clean energy back onto the regional grid.
Energy resilience is vital.
It’s tough to predict what obstacles the future may bring without a crystal ball. Nonetheless, it is apparent that the energy revolution is accelerating, and the need for energy resilience is critical.
Renewables alone will not suffice to deliver resilience. Many new energy resources, when combined with sophisticated controls, decentralized generation, and energy storage, will help improve resilient electricity for communities all over the world. A democratized energy supply that is based on several generation sources will usher in a new era of energy resilience, allowing the world to generate the energy it needs to power what matters in a sustainable manner.
