US Defense Facilities are Facing Rising Outage Risks
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The nightmare scenario of a largescale power outage that paralyzes U.S. military and defense facilities is a real risk according to experts. This dire warning was shared during an expert panel hosted in Dec. 2023 by the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE).
Why Experts Think U.S. Military and Defense Facilities May be at Risk
The expert panel was entitled “Winter Reliability: Keeping the Lights on for Civilian & Military Operations” and the video can be found here. One key reason for the concern is the prediction in Nov. 2023 from the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) of an elevated winter blackout risk this winter across much of the bulk power system.
This overall reliability risk impacts the country’s defense facilities. Surprisingly, a whopping 98% of DOD installations rely on utility-provided power. And recent history does not provide any comfort ? for example, Winter Storm Uri in 2021 caused outages at 12 out of 15 primary defense facilities in Texas. In fact, there were over 6,000 outages at U.S. DOD facilities in 2021 – equating to over 3,000 days of lost power in total.
The panel did come up with some potential solutions. Suggestions included the development of additional interregional transfer capacity, expanding transmission lines, enhancing grid hardening practices, and bolstering in-house generation capacity.
Overall, the needs of the U.S. government are not much different than those of the average U.S. citizen, but the scale is much greater. These critical facilities are important for national defense and rendering them useless from a largescale outage is not something we can afford to roll the dice on.
In the final analysis, it is and always will be the goal to improve reliability. It’s what customers and regulators demand, and for good reason. And U.S. military and defense facilities, due to their importance to national security, must be at the front of the line when it comes to reaping the benefits of any boost in reliability.
