I was not surprised when a recent White House Report stated that weather is the leading cause of power outages. The impact of these natural events can often be felt on a personal and professional level as homes are damaged and businesses have to close. Electricity plays a critical role as recovery efforts begin. The Report, prepared by the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability with assistance from the White House Office of Science and Technology, utilizes an economic model to estimate the annual cost of power outages caused by severe weather in the United States and offers strategies for increasing grid resilience and reliability. It begins by describing the current state of the U.S. electric grid, the impact of widespread power outages caused by severe weather, and the frequency of severe weather due to climate change. Below are a couple of factual highlights from the Report:
- Between 2003 and 2012, roughly 679 power outages, each affecting at least 50,000 customers, occurred due to weather events.
- In 2012, the United States suffered 11 billion-dollar weather disasters – the second-most for any year on record.
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